Singlehood

Recently I had a friend send me all the old posts I had posted on my old blog before I switched over to blogger.com. I quite enjoyed reading over the more literary posts I had crafted, and figured that since I am too tired to blog tonight, I would instead repost a vintage piece entitled, "Singlehood".

(Twenty points to anyone who can post a comment on why this particular picture was chosen for this post)

Glancing at my calendar this week, I noticed that every day was booked except for last Tuesday night. I decided to make a date with myself and go eat at Jason's Deli and look for a new mixing bowl at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I tell you, I am a wild one. A tray full of Beef Eater, strawberries, and Baked Lays in front of me and Jack Johnson's new album on my iPod left me in hog heaven. Two bites into my sandwich I spied a girl I went to nursing school with in line waving at me. Next to her was a tan Adonis who would make Brad Pitt question if he was still the hottest man in the room. I suddenly became acutely aware of my ponytail, hospital t-shirt, and au-juice running down my chin. As I quickly preened myself, she rounded the corner to reveal her swollen abdomen. The conversation started at her belly (twins), then moved on to her new husband (doctor), and her job (none, she is married to a doctor). When we ran out of things to cover in her wonderful life, she craned her neck to eye my meal for one, crinkling her sun-kissed nose, and asked how things were going for me. I updated her on my new job (no, not what I really want to be doing), my new place (I don't own, I still rent), and my love life (we broke up and he is now married). She listened with her head cocked sympathetically as she made circuits around her gravid stomach. Not knowing what to say as she reached for her husband's hand, she hastily blurted out, "Well, good luck with all that".

I sat back down to single serving fare and became to ponder her words. Good luck with that? Good luck with what? Being a single woman of a certain age, you become used to people asking you, "So when are you going to settle down?" I never know quite how to answer that. Should I be glib and tell them that it is on my to-do list, I just haven't gotten around to it yet? Or should I be honest and tell them of the overwhelming loneliness that I feel when my soul cries for its companion? Neither answer is satisfactory, and I unsure of what answer I could possibly give them that would be. I am so weary of others pointing out the fact to me as if I was oblivious. I am more acutely aware of my singlehood than any other person could be. It stalks me and taints everything I touch. I have never tried so hard at something and been so bad at it. I heard once that getting married is like playing duet; you can sit down at the piano and play but not matter how hard you try, it still takes someone else to sit down next to you and play their part.

I tire of sitting through half-hearted conversations that always end in, "I am sure it will happen for you". What makes you so sure, when I am not even sure? In the less than 1% of the entire world's population that is male, LDS, and worthy, what are the chances that I will find one who wants to be with me for eternity. I have trouble getting men to commit to dinner, let alone sacred rites in the House of the Lord. This must be what childless couples feel when someone bouncing a cherubic child on their knee as they too are told, "I am sure it will happen for you". Perhaps people utter these words because they too recognize the bleakness of that future. They cannot imagine what it would be like to walk this world alone, and the thought of eternity yawning out in front of them sends waves of panic through their chest. What else can they say?

There is a definite division between the marrieds and the single. I have bid entire generation of ward families into couplehood and have yet to see one of them since. It is as if they disappear into the spirit world and those of us left on earth can not longer see or speak to them. One day when you slip into the spirit world, you are going to see all the old friends you thought you had lost, just waiting to induct you into their cult. You will start doing things like going to Pampered Chef parties, singing the praises of the Diaper Genie, and perfecting your condolatory head tilts for all those you left behind in singlehood.

After finishing my sandwich and my pondering, I waved across the room to my former classmate as she left. I am happy for her, and truly do hope that the grass is greener on her side of the fence. I would be lying if I did not say that I wish I was her. But on that night, I sat back down at my tiny table, with my ice cream cone in hand and though, you know I might just have another, for no one will be seeing me naked tonight. Let's hear three cheers for me as I strive to enjoy my singlehood.

Keeper of My Past, Holder of My Future

The cost of a new relationship is almost prohibitive. Every passing year represents more of my biography that I will have to convey in two dimensional words; that he won’t experience first hand. He will not be able to recall what I looked like with long hair, or know how much I have grown and changed since college, he will not remember my brother's wedding, or have a sense of how I fit into my Austin life and how that lead me to where I am today. I will have to re-have every conversation I have ever invested in someone else. I have to repeatedly open up for the inevitable rejection to come. This is not melodrama, for I’ve yet to be in a relationship that has not ended. Every go at the goal takes a little piece of me so that I have less to give away next time. The journey has left me so travel worn that I sometimes am afraid there will be nothing left of myself to give him when he finally finds me.

Singlehood has been a constant theme in my life for the past year. Leaving the warm embrace of the YSA put a point on the subtle unspoken nub that innervates my whole being. All my efforts, my social structure, my thoughts of the future are pointed in a single direction, which ironically I have no control over. This thought is new in comparison my actual state. I have always been a single being, a single entity, companionless since before the world had a way to keep time. I was created as an individual with independence and agency and then tasked with finding my own compliment. I have never been part of something bigger than my whole. Yet my creator saw fit to instill a sometimes severe longing in me to tell me that my utter happiness can be found there.

In this past year, the inevitable, defeatist thought has occurred to me that it might never happen for me. That I am to walk this Earth alone, forever in the same state. That the full measure of my creation will never be achieved. I am fully cognizant that I cannot let that thought live and grow in my breast for it is a poison that will kill the soft, warm light within me. Recently I was reminded and came to a greater appreciation that with God, like the mythical Fate and her skein, there is always a design. I have to trust that I am not single by accident. In the last ten years of my eternal search, I have not been simply marking time or stagnating. I have oft contemplated what the purpose of these fallow years have been. The answers are always different and varied as the shades of blue, but one thought that I come back to most often would be that I needed this time to fully appreciate who I am as a whole before blending it with another. My nature is to give, to serve, and to think of others and then focus on my own needs. Had I been blended earlier in my life with another, I don't know if I could distinguish where I stopped and he began. That kind of selflessness could have left me with exactly what the word suggests, without self. All traces of individuality obliterated, and I am unsure once that became my situation I could have ever pulled out of it.

Today I am a whole and complete person. My edges are clearly defined and I know I can offer another a companion and not simply a moldable block of clay that will conform to what he thinks he wants. I know I take God's statement, "It is not good for man to be alone" to near mania at times, which causes me to question my faith in his design for me. I must stop acting as an obstinate child, demanding a snack now with no concept that dinner is but an hour away. I must trust in Him whom I have chosen to follow, for I am already walking the path. How much happier and calm will I be if I just take faith in the journey? Even if I pass out of this life in my single state, I can recognize that he asked of me to make an Abrahamic sacrifice and will try to understand what it truly means to give him my all, even my dearest desire.

I step back and look at what it means to be a person. I am my awe inspiring timeline that yawns out into the eternities. I am every thought I have ever had. I am every place I have ever been. I am all my wishes and desires. I am the massive depth that represents the sum total of all my experiences. It is overwhelming to think about what is encompassed in that, in my all, and then have to consider that he is just as massive, that he is just complex and deep. To take and mesh these two vast and entirely separate beings into one seems just as improbable as most things that require faith. Thinking of that helps me to understand why God might be taking things slower than I would like, taking things on his own timeline. While waiting means my other half will not be the keeper of my past as I had always envisioned he would be, I will, for today, take comfort that he will someday be the holder of my future.