I'm skipping out on my cousin's wedding this summer, and instead sending a housewarming gift to his single older brother.

Nothing against my cousin, or his fiancee, or weddings. Mostly it's just that it's all the way in California. All of my cousins who have gotten married so far have done so on the west coast, so I haven't been to any of the weddings of this generation of my family, except of course my own brother's.

Now another of my cousins has announced his engagement, which means that half of us (on Mom's side of the family) are paired off. Out of 12 grandchildren, four are married, two are engaged, two are too young to even be thinking about such things, three are in their early twenties, and as such still on the early end as far as looking for a life partner is concerned, and one is well within the prime marrying timeframe for people of her demographic profile but with no prospects in sight.

I'm taking this latest engagement announcement rather personally. Even though I know full well there's no rational reason to do so. I should probably pull out my Cognitive Behavioral Therapy journal and work through this nonsense, rather than whine about it on my blog for all the world to see. But, well, it's my blog, and I'll cry if I want to (cry if I want to, cr-y if I want to...).

See, Jason is the only cousin I've got who's older than me. So as long as he remained single, it didn't bother me so much that the cousins who are younger than us have been getting married left and right. He was one of the points of comparison, within my family at least, that said to me that it's okay to still be single. I don't even really know Jason that well, or what his life has been like over the last decade or so, but his existence as a fellow single grandchild was a comfort to me.

Sigh. I know there are much more productive ways of dealing with singleness-angst than sitting around feeling sorry for myself. There are no prospects in sight mainly because I've more or less taken myself out of the game over the past year or so. And I'm almost ready to get back out there. Except that I'm just now pouring myself into getting my career back on track, after letting that also get derailed over the last year as well. And I don't think I have the energy for both big projects at the same time. (And believe me, dating is a big project. At least for an introvert like me.)

I am quite vulnerable to a certain vicious cycle -- When I'm depressed about my non-existent social life, I lose motivation in my work, because I'm tired of that being the defining feature of my life. So I let my work slip, but don't build up my social life, because I'm feeling so guilty for not getting my work done. Then my self esteem plummets, because I'm not even doing any good at the one thing I'm good at. Finally I get the help I need and start to pull myself together, and if I'm not careful, the whole thing starts over again.

Well, I'm working on that. One step at a time. And in the meantime, I can take care of myself and the people I care about, whether we're paired off or not.

And wish the best to Jason and Jessica, and Matthew and Jessica, and all the rest.