Hey! Turning 25 years of age is not so bad after all, when I have almost exactly 30 years more on the clock than you have. You may feel that life is effectively passing you by, but your age is more in your mind than in your spirit, and I know of 90 year olds who would put both of us to shame with their own incredible enthusiasm for life in general. The value of a life is not measured by age markers, but by the journey we have each taken in order to get from one to the next, and the type of person we are inside, rather than judging this entirely by outward appearances and the number of wrinkles we have.
Often if we feel that we have at least made significant positive progress in other life areas which are important to us, then it makes our disappointments in areas of concern at least a little more bearable. From what you have just told me most areas other than perhaps your love life have been going along fairly well up until now. It should therefore be far less possible for your mind to convince you that your life is without hope, as you have many other positive life experiences to draw strength from, to help you to keep looking for a suitable life partner, especially as you are only relatively recently suffering from a broken and deeply wounded heart. But the need to express love and to be valued and respected in return for being the person whom we already are is I feel our greatest spiritual need, and therefore happiness in other areas in our life does not give us the comfort we would have normally expected to, if we are still single, feeling lonely and unloved. You could say that our heart is no longer in it? Our life and the world at large instead of being being viewed as a spectrum of vivid colours, appears only to us as blacks and whites (mostly blacks).
While I know that this is easier said than done for someone like myself who is not in your situation and is not therefore so emotionally involved with it's outcome to offer advice, I would make the simple observation that you are currently carrying too much negative emotional baggage with you from your previous broken relationship into any future ones, in order to give either yourself or a possible partner a fair go. If you know what is meant by wearing your heart upon your sleeve, then you will at least understand what I am trying to get at here. Even if it has already been anything up to 12 months since your love life took a distinct downward dive, I sense that you still feel a great sense of affection towards this man, and that although your mind is telling you that it is over, your heart is still unable to let him go. You are still in the process of grieving for a relationship and lost love that will never be, but whoever said that the human heart was logical?
On the basis of this reading, I would expect that while there will be further opportunities for you to meet your soul mate over the next year or so, that you still have a lot of inner work to do, in getting clearer in your own mind what you expect to gain from your closest relationships. You may or may not need to seek professional help in doing this, and please also watch your health as in your present sensitive condition you are more vulnerable to any bug which is presently doing the rounds. Without denying what your heart is trying to tell you and unintentionally keeping out all positive feelings along with the negative ones, your most urgent need is to develop a thicker emotional skin. At present by wearing your wounded heart upon your sleeve, potentially anything that a man says will be the wrong thing to say. Also do not fall into the all too common trap of spending your time with your prospective partner talking about the man you have just parted with, or worse comparing the two of them whenever you are given a chance to do so. This will be almost guaranteed to put any man off of going out with you if he begins to feel that he is attempting to fill someone else's shoes, and is found to be lacking by you in many different days.
If writing down the positive qualities you are looking for in a man plus those more negative ones you could never live with helps you to clarify your own ideas as to the best type of man for you, then please go ahead. Then visit the places where you would most expect to find the type of person you just described. Draw upon some of the extra inner strength you have already gained from your personal victories in other life areas, in order to increase your own feelings of self worth specifically with regards to matters of the heart.
2008 could possibly turn out to be the beginning of a new and much more happier love life for you, but without first doing the inner work involved with the purpose of shedding some of that extra emotional baggage that is weighing you down at present, I sense that you will not be able to take full advantage of any romantic opportunities which will come your way during the coming months. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that by now you should have got over him, as human beings vary widely in how long we need in order to begin to allow our hearts to heal. You may need more than 12 months. Only you and possibly a professional counsellor can decide when the time is right for you to begin looking for your man again.
Hoping that these insights have both helped you and have gone at least in some small way towards lifting your spirits,
Love, Light and Healing,
eye_of_tiger
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