Confessions of a Singleton
I found myself crying a bit Monday morning as I was supposed to be running. It's hard to run while crying, so I decided to have my little moment and then get back to my regularly scheduled program. I cry about 4 times a year about being single. I used to get really worried when this happened. I thought it was a sign that I had serious problems. I used to worry that I was becoming one of those sad, mopey girls who aimlessly wanders around the house looking like this: 
I thought I was a bad Christian or maybe a bad feminist or maybe both. I thought it was a sign that I wasn't grateful for the wonderful life I had or that I was too focused on not being married. I have since learned to cut myself a break. I really don't know too many people that don't have some thing in their lives that is a struggle for them--that isn't something they had hoped would turn out differently. Singlehood is the same way.
While I can honestly say that most days I am acutely aware of all of the things I have that are gifts in my life--job, family, friends, a roommate who rescued my handpicked fruit from the freezer after the power outage--I still have plenty of days in which I am also aware of the longing of my heart to have a husband and a family...and some goats. We would be some cross between this:
and this: 
I have since learned to give myself some space to grieve. And that's what those tears on a Monday morning are all about. There are just moments--probably in any life--when the disappointments hit harder than others. A few years ago I was finally able to figure out this idea of grieving. I think I thought that to be a good Christian I was never supposed to admit that I was anything but thrilled with the life God had given me. And then I realized that part of living as a fallen human in a fallen world is that things will never work out quite the way you had envisioned. And it's okay to admit that. I would rather be married with a family right now. That's not what God has for me. That's okay, but it hurts some times. It's okay for me to grieve for the children I don't have just like it's okay for my friends who have fertility problems. It's okay for me to admit to God, myself, and sometimes others that the picture I had of myself at 31 is not exactly the life I am living now. And I had to realize that until I allowed myself to feel the hurt of that I could never get to a place of enjoying the life I have.
That's because until I let it come to the surface, I would spend a ridiculous amount of effort trying to cover it up. And as I have learned from living so close to the political epicenter of the country, it's always the cover-up that gets you. I also learned that until I was honest about what I was feeling I couldn't get the comfort that comes from others telling you those ever-so-healing words: You're normal. What you are feeling is normal. It will pass. And I also realized that until I was honest about what I was going through I couldn't be useful to other singletons who felt as isolated as I did. As long as I kept pretending that I was fine and was completely okay with life, I couldn't be the one to tell others those helpful words: You're normal; What you are feeling is normal; it will pass. I think sometimes people try to give you helpful advice like, "Until you are happy with yourself, you won't meet anyone." First of all--that's not true--I know plenty of unhappy people that have gotten married. Second of all--while the people who tell you these things are trying to be helpful and there is, obviously, value in finding contentment in life, statements like this make singles feel like a)its their fault they are single and b) that if they ever feel disappointed or frustrated with their life, they need to suck it up.
I am sure that if you polled most married people, they probably cry
because of marriage-related things from time to time as well. But since people so often hide their struggles for various reasons, we don't get to hear those phrases from people--either because we don't want to open up about our wounds or because no one else is willing to admit their struggles from the past. I know that I am often controlled by my desire for people to think I've got it all together, so I don't want to admit that I have "issues" sometimes.
So here is my attempt to throw out a little, "That's normal" about singlehood. I'm sure some of this applies to married life too, but I am not sure.
1. There are lots of perks of being single--but few of them are so awesome that I wouldn't prefer to have a family. I know that it's awesome that I can eat ice cream for dinner or stay out crazy late on a Saturday night. I enjoy these things from time to time. I also enjoy that I don't have to worry about my child's college fund when I buy a new pair shoes. And, I can definitely see amazing opportunities that I have in my career and coaching responsibilities that would be really hard to balance with a marriage or family. But, I really don't know many singletons who find these to be comforting after they spend the evening with a young family and feel the ache of not having one.
2. I, for some reason, went through my 20's thinking that praying for a husband was off limits--but as I see time and time again, characters in the Bible often pray earnestly for the desires of their heart. And often God grants them in truly bizarre ways. As one of my pastors told me while we were discussing this topic, "Allow your desire to shape your prayer life, but don't let it cripple you." My fear of praying about this or discussing it meant that I spent quite a bit of those years with the same feeling I get when I hold my breath while I drive over the Arkansas River. While I never want to be one of those people who whine all the time about being single or who allow their singleness to define them, I can say that being able to say that being single is hard makes me feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. And I think that feeling free to cry out to God for the things my heart desires has helped me begin to try to balance hope and contentment--peace and longing.
4. Sometimes I just need to cry a little bit. My mom loves to tell this story about a day that she took me to the doctor and I got freaked out. The doctor came in and I started to cry. He asked me if I was okay and I told him, "I think I just need to cry a widdle bit." He was a wise man, said, "Okay," left the room and came back later. Evidently, after I cried for a minute I was fine. I think this has been a pattern in my life. If I just let myself feel what I feel, I can move on. As long as I fight it, it sticks around.
5. That being said, it is also important that I don't waste these years--however long they last. I read a great book one time that talked about using singlehood well. The author talked about stewardship. I have tried to be a good steward of my single years--doing things I wouldn't/won't be able to do if a family was involved. I've tried to go on mission trips, get involved with volunteer opportunities, commit to things at work that are large time commitments, etc. While I get incredibly mad when people assume that I can do anything they ask because I am single, I am aware that I have quite a bit more freedom in my schedule, and that I need to use it wisely. I also try to take risks I wouldn't want to take if I had a family--that's a major reason why I moved to DC. I really try to make choices based on creating a life that is sustainable if singlehood is permanent and I won't regret if it is temporary. I still struggle here. Sometimes I waste way too much time watching Murder, She Wrote and other times I find myself totally overwhelmed because I am overcommited.
8. I have had to deal with the side effects of the abstinence movement. I realized that much of my anger and frustration with being single came from a lie that was sold to me years ago. As a child of the 90's, I was a teenager during the True Love Waits movement. Even the title is a bit misguided. While I have never regretted my choice to follow the Bible's restrictions regarding sex, I had to deal with a side effect of the abstinence movement. In their efforts to encourage teenage girls to not engage in premarital sex, they accidentally promised these young girls that if they would just wait, God would bring along the perfect guy. So we all signed up thinking that our good behavior would be rewarded with a charming, handsome guy who would help with the dishes and laugh at all of our jokes. I'm sure this happened for some, but for the rest of us, we were left with questions about why God hadn't fulfilled His promise. It took me a while to realize this was what I was feeling and it took me even longer to realize that God never promised this. I think there are probably lots of the Bible's rules that I follow thinking that I am bartering with God--and that's always wrong. I follow His rules about abstinence not so I can get something out of Him, but because I believe He knows best and that sex outside of marriage is not good for me in the long term.
9. It is silly to pretend that being single isn't hard, but it is dangerous to let yourself think that if you could just get married it would be all better. This was probably one of the hardest things for me to get a handle on--and I still wrestle with this from time-to-time. Anything I have ever thought would fulfill me has always fallen short--those LA Gear shoes I just had to have, my first pair of Lucky jeans, my move to Nashville. It's never enough. I have a temptation to believe that the next thing I can think of will finally take away the ache that only God can fill and that will never fully go away as long as I am here on earth.
10. Show grace to all. In the end, wherever you are in life, it's hard sometimes and wonderful sometimes and sometimes it is both at the same time. So, I work each day to be less judgmental, more patient, and less worried about what might not happen tomorrow.
I don't know if this will help anyone else, but there it is. 31 years of singleness, and this is where I am.
I thought I was a bad Christian or maybe a bad feminist or maybe both. I thought it was a sign that I wasn't grateful for the wonderful life I had or that I was too focused on not being married. I have since learned to cut myself a break. I really don't know too many people that don't have some thing in their lives that is a struggle for them--that isn't something they had hoped would turn out differently. Singlehood is the same way.
While I can honestly say that most days I am acutely aware of all of the things I have that are gifts in my life--job, family, friends, a roommate who rescued my handpicked fruit from the freezer after the power outage--I still have plenty of days in which I am also aware of the longing of my heart to have a husband and a family...and some goats. We would be some cross between this:
and this: I have since learned to give myself some space to grieve. And that's what those tears on a Monday morning are all about. There are just moments--probably in any life--when the disappointments hit harder than others. A few years ago I was finally able to figure out this idea of grieving. I think I thought that to be a good Christian I was never supposed to admit that I was anything but thrilled with the life God had given me. And then I realized that part of living as a fallen human in a fallen world is that things will never work out quite the way you had envisioned. And it's okay to admit that. I would rather be married with a family right now. That's not what God has for me. That's okay, but it hurts some times. It's okay for me to grieve for the children I don't have just like it's okay for my friends who have fertility problems. It's okay for me to admit to God, myself, and sometimes others that the picture I had of myself at 31 is not exactly the life I am living now. And I had to realize that until I allowed myself to feel the hurt of that I could never get to a place of enjoying the life I have.
That's because until I let it come to the surface, I would spend a ridiculous amount of effort trying to cover it up. And as I have learned from living so close to the political epicenter of the country, it's always the cover-up that gets you. I also learned that until I was honest about what I was feeling I couldn't get the comfort that comes from others telling you those ever-so-healing words: You're normal. What you are feeling is normal. It will pass. And I also realized that until I was honest about what I was going through I couldn't be useful to other singletons who felt as isolated as I did. As long as I kept pretending that I was fine and was completely okay with life, I couldn't be the one to tell others those helpful words: You're normal; What you are feeling is normal; it will pass. I think sometimes people try to give you helpful advice like, "Until you are happy with yourself, you won't meet anyone." First of all--that's not true--I know plenty of unhappy people that have gotten married. Second of all--while the people who tell you these things are trying to be helpful and there is, obviously, value in finding contentment in life, statements like this make singles feel like a)its their fault they are single and b) that if they ever feel disappointed or frustrated with their life, they need to suck it up.
I am sure that if you polled most married people, they probably cry
because of marriage-related things from time to time as well. But since people so often hide their struggles for various reasons, we don't get to hear those phrases from people--either because we don't want to open up about our wounds or because no one else is willing to admit their struggles from the past. I know that I am often controlled by my desire for people to think I've got it all together, so I don't want to admit that I have "issues" sometimes.So here is my attempt to throw out a little, "That's normal" about singlehood. I'm sure some of this applies to married life too, but I am not sure.
1. There are lots of perks of being single--but few of them are so awesome that I wouldn't prefer to have a family. I know that it's awesome that I can eat ice cream for dinner or stay out crazy late on a Saturday night. I enjoy these things from time to time. I also enjoy that I don't have to worry about my child's college fund when I buy a new pair shoes. And, I can definitely see amazing opportunities that I have in my career and coaching responsibilities that would be really hard to balance with a marriage or family. But, I really don't know many singletons who find these to be comforting after they spend the evening with a young family and feel the ache of not having one.
2. I, for some reason, went through my 20's thinking that praying for a husband was off limits--but as I see time and time again, characters in the Bible often pray earnestly for the desires of their heart. And often God grants them in truly bizarre ways. As one of my pastors told me while we were discussing this topic, "Allow your desire to shape your prayer life, but don't let it cripple you." My fear of praying about this or discussing it meant that I spent quite a bit of those years with the same feeling I get when I hold my breath while I drive over the Arkansas River. While I never want to be one of those people who whine all the time about being single or who allow their singleness to define them, I can say that being able to say that being single is hard makes me feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. And I think that feeling free to cry out to God for the things my heart desires has helped me begin to try to balance hope and contentment--peace and longing.
4. Sometimes I just need to cry a little bit. My mom loves to tell this story about a day that she took me to the doctor and I got freaked out. The doctor came in and I started to cry. He asked me if I was okay and I told him, "I think I just need to cry a widdle bit." He was a wise man, said, "Okay," left the room and came back later. Evidently, after I cried for a minute I was fine. I think this has been a pattern in my life. If I just let myself feel what I feel, I can move on. As long as I fight it, it sticks around.
5. That being said, it is also important that I don't waste these years--however long they last. I read a great book one time that talked about using singlehood well. The author talked about stewardship. I have tried to be a good steward of my single years--doing things I wouldn't/won't be able to do if a family was involved. I've tried to go on mission trips, get involved with volunteer opportunities, commit to things at work that are large time commitments, etc. While I get incredibly mad when people assume that I can do anything they ask because I am single, I am aware that I have quite a bit more freedom in my schedule, and that I need to use it wisely. I also try to take risks I wouldn't want to take if I had a family--that's a major reason why I moved to DC. I really try to make choices based on creating a life that is sustainable if singlehood is permanent and I won't regret if it is temporary. I still struggle here. Sometimes I waste way too much time watching Murder, She Wrote and other times I find myself totally overwhelmed because I am overcommited.
8. I have had to deal with the side effects of the abstinence movement. I realized that much of my anger and frustration with being single came from a lie that was sold to me years ago. As a child of the 90's, I was a teenager during the True Love Waits movement. Even the title is a bit misguided. While I have never regretted my choice to follow the Bible's restrictions regarding sex, I had to deal with a side effect of the abstinence movement. In their efforts to encourage teenage girls to not engage in premarital sex, they accidentally promised these young girls that if they would just wait, God would bring along the perfect guy. So we all signed up thinking that our good behavior would be rewarded with a charming, handsome guy who would help with the dishes and laugh at all of our jokes. I'm sure this happened for some, but for the rest of us, we were left with questions about why God hadn't fulfilled His promise. It took me a while to realize this was what I was feeling and it took me even longer to realize that God never promised this. I think there are probably lots of the Bible's rules that I follow thinking that I am bartering with God--and that's always wrong. I follow His rules about abstinence not so I can get something out of Him, but because I believe He knows best and that sex outside of marriage is not good for me in the long term.
9. It is silly to pretend that being single isn't hard, but it is dangerous to let yourself think that if you could just get married it would be all better. This was probably one of the hardest things for me to get a handle on--and I still wrestle with this from time-to-time. Anything I have ever thought would fulfill me has always fallen short--those LA Gear shoes I just had to have, my first pair of Lucky jeans, my move to Nashville. It's never enough. I have a temptation to believe that the next thing I can think of will finally take away the ache that only God can fill and that will never fully go away as long as I am here on earth.
10. Show grace to all. In the end, wherever you are in life, it's hard sometimes and wonderful sometimes and sometimes it is both at the same time. So, I work each day to be less judgmental, more patient, and less worried about what might not happen tomorrow.
I don't know if this will help anyone else, but there it is. 31 years of singleness, and this is where I am.
Comments