On Being Single

I am going to write about something quite personal. Not that anyone reads this, but I hope it encourages maybe at least one person. I have recently decided to stop dating. At least at this time in my life. So here it is: I am single, and increasingly, I am proud of it.

This is how I ended my personal journal/prayer today: "I never dreamed I'd be here. Sitting alone on my bed age 25 1/2, no husband or kids, no full time job, college loans not paid off, living in a dark, warm, rattly basement room with two single 30-something women. And I'd never dreamed that I'd be, what was that, content?"

That is, almost content.

I am so sick of mommy blogs. Okay, so when I find myself not working like today (again), I read blogs, a lot of them written by married women with young children. I have some favorites that you can find on my blog roll. I like them because they are entertaining, yes, the kids are adorable, and I like getting ideas for cooking, crafts, etc. Some I read so often, I feel like I almost know the people. But when I look at these blogs, bad thoughts play in my head at times. Bad thoughts I have come to find quite common.

That is me, that is supposed to be me.

Who ever said I was supposed to be them anyway? Well, this is a very touchy subject. But the pain, thanks be to God, has ever decreased over time and I can talk about it now.

It goes back to what a lot of you women remember growing up. Well, for as long as I can remember, I wanted to have babies. I've come to realize it's because my mom was the oldest of five kids, my dad in the middle of four, and so there were always women having babies in our family. I just loved them. I remember for a long time, there was a new baby every year in our family (on either or both sides). I was a typical little girl, with lots of dolls. As I grew up it turned into, my goal in life was not only to have babies, but to find that "perfect someone" to have babies with. Okay, so it wasn't my number one goal, but it was ALWAYS in the back of my mind in my early teens, then into high school and college. Especially as I came to realize when many of the women (grandma, mom, aunts) met and married their spouses. Quite young. Met in their teens and married by age 20 or 21.

As a child, I idealized women and, regrettably, I still do. (That's why this blogging business can be dangerous.) My mom, aunts, cousins, grandma, teachers, babysitters, and all the women in my favorite movies and shows, especially Dr. Quinn, Laura Ingalls, and Anne of Green Gables.

With all these women, there was usually one similarity. They had a man. And if they didn't (by a certain age), something was wrong with them. You see, one of my biggest fears is that people might see me the way I saw single, unmarried women. AS a child, I remember feeling pleasure that a teacher was "Mrs." but if she was "Miss" or "Ms." something must be wrong. If the teacher was "Ms." that meant she was divorced and if she was "Miss" and not reasonably young I would think, "Why is she not married? Is she not pretty enough?" blah blah blah.

Somehow in my thoughts and observations as a young girl, I came to believe this is what it means to be beautiful and worthy: to have a wonderful man at your side and to have his babies. While I still struggle now to dismiss this as a lie, I am so proud of how far I have come!

I still wonder when I see beautiful women how or why they are single. But then I am reminded, Oh yeah. I'm a beautiful woman and single. (In fact, I've been asked this so many times in my life.) So in a way, it's kind of nice to have support and be supported by people like me.

That brings me to a point of frustration: I wish there were more blogs out there that are written by people like me: mid 20s, single, and not that content about it! It seems almost every blog is young, married and trying to get pregnant; young, married with kids; or older 30s, married with kids. There are a few that are young and newly engaged or married, and even fewer that are college age. Even less I have found are older than 40. Okay there are a few that are single and 20s, but they seem more the partyer hard core type, not the traditional-at-heart like I am. While I enjoy reading all different types of blogs, it would be nice to find a few like mine! (But at least I have my friend Becca's blog. She and I are kind of in the same boat, I think!)

Thanks for listening to my scoop on singlehood. If you're there, hang on, I understand!

Live in this World

I wrote this on 1-4-10. It refers to many people who are important to me, including a woman I know at one of the group homes where I work.

Dearest LORD and my closest friend
I am so confused as to how
I can just sit here
My knees capture the sunlight
Coming in from the window
Just sit praising you
How is this changing anything?
But yet I do it
Because I just can't not do it
It is my very being
Who I am
And I don't feel in control now
Your Spirit is coming in
And the Sunlight is You
I'm captured by a real Being
I don't really know anything
Except you want me to do this
Why can't I just do this every day

Spend each day like this
Maybe I'd like life a lot more
I wouldn't be presented with
Screaming and self-induced bloody scratches
On arms and legs
And a mind that can't
Tell herself with words or actions
What she truly Wants
Or others, those that care for her
And the worst is that I can't comfort her
And in that way I am very
Alone and uncomforted
Oh Lord but in this moment I am
Comforted in your Love
And I know she is too
Even in her pain and discomfort

And his heart
Is bleeding out til there's no more
Emptiness
Closed off to love
And so abandoned
He can't even figure out
Who or what love is
He loves her but he is still
Bleeding, fighting, misunderstood
She is so busy and fleeting
Not able to think one way or the other
Because she so desperately wants
And needs love from a man
But a mangled and broken
Heart cannot lover her Even
If he says he does
These are two broken shattered people
And their pain is hard to bear

And I see it in her crystal
Shiny beautiful eyes
Tinted blue oceans
She really looks and will
never let me escape a room
Without those arms opening
And I see it her eyes
She is so broken
But the most incredible lover
I have ever seen
The way she loves is amazing
Yet how could she not love herself
She is longing for freedom
But somehow can't make a leap
She keeps going because Your love flows
out of her and
Her love makes me want to live

Their joy is deep but sometimes
Strained under
The wrinkles of hurt
The things that threaten to tear
Everything
Throw them in a puddle
A useless pool of water
But somehow life keeps going
And now a new year

Will it end the same?
Questions unanswered
A mom who keeps abusing
Awaking to another endles
Day of job searching
Barbing statements about your
Worthlessness
As a single person
As a jobless person
What society and family and even Christianity
can say about you
About your "condition"
Whether it's because you only
Have one hand
Or maybe because you have an actual illness
located in the DSM that is called
Major Depressive Disorder
OR maybe because you are just a "label-less" person
Who feels
Like a nobody

That's why I wish I could sit
Here
And just forget the world
Because no matter how much
Pain I bleed out
It doesn't seem to change anything
I will stay in your presence
As much as possible
Until You teach me how to
Live in this World.

Labels

Labels have always been a big part of my life because they have given me worth. Sad, but true. In each stage of our life, we have been given labels. It started with the family labels: daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, neice. Also, as long as I can remember, I was a "Christian." In school I was a "musician" and "good student." Those were usually positive labels but came with their own stigmas. Within myself, I was a "worrier" and a "perfectionist." Enter mental illness. (Well, some don't believe depression to be a mental illness, but regardless...) Starting as a late teenager, I knew myself as a "depression sufferer." Into college, along with the depression stigma, I gave myself a lot of other names, a lot of them having to do with Christianity and depression. The funny thing was the expectations I had for myself as a "Christian" and "depression sufferer" didn't seem to overlap often. I would get quite frustrated that I couldn't work my way out of my thinking boxes.

In college, I had new labels: "sister-in-law," "girlfriend", "youth leader," "professional", and "teacher". I dreamed of others: "aunt," "wife," "mom," ("stay-at-home-mom"), "college graduate" and "depression-survivor." When some of my "dreams" didn't come to be, I felt like a failure. I overlooked the fact that I was indeed a college graduate, a practicing teacher, a growing Christian, loving friend and thriving in the aftermath of a wretched illness. Instead I focused on what I was not.

Today, in my personal journal, I reflected not just on my changing labels, but those of people in my life. A few of my friends and my cousin are going to be moms, some have become teachers or missionaries. As a college-graduate, the number one question I get asked is (after they find out that yes, I have graduated), "What do you do?" I used to always say, "I am a Kindergarten teacher." But even then, I wasn't too proud. But at least it was something. Now I don't know what to say. I guess I could say a "teacher in transition." Because of a new job, I have acquired a label of PCA (personal care attendant). But PCAs aren't real jobs. They're transition jobs, usually people do them while they look for their real job, what they went to school for. I am not saying I look down on what I do; I am just saying, this is what society says.

I am learning to hate labels. Maybe some are inevitable such as a job title or the fact that I am a Christian. (That is, I am a "follower of Christ"--the literal meaning of the word, but I don't always like to associate with Christians). Some labels I am working on changing or "reframing." Maybe all that takes is to tell myself, "I am healing from depression, but I am not my depression. And not all the decisions in my life have to revolve around this."

Then there's the lack of labels, the ones I'd always wished I'd have by now at age 25: "wife" and "mom." This, I admit has been a struggle as I weekly hear of marriages, pregnancies and births of my friends/family members. (While I truly am happy for them, the Devil likes to come in and lure me away from happiness and towards myself with his lies.) The truth is, my worth is NOT dependent on my marital status. Yeah, yeah, it's so easy to say but I have to cling to this, looking back at all the wonderful things I have been given and saved from. I used to think "I don't want Jesus to come back before I have gotten married and have had children." I have grown so much since then! Life is not about your role in life. I am so selfish to think I deserve to be married and have kids, or whatever. I don't believe Christ wants me to suffer as I wait, rather he joins me in my suffering. If I grow closer to him because of this wait, then that will be a much greater gift then any other. Because of his mercy and clarity in my life, I am happy to say that I am comfortable being single (unmarried) much of the time.

While I still have dreams, I try not to let the labels that come with these dreams define who I am. I end up only more scarred and empty. The only label I now want is "daughter of the King."