Shame on singlehood!

I had planned to write another piece following up on my last post about Polygamy and Mormon’s. And then I went to work and I sat talking for a while with a man who has been married for almost 50 years to the same woman. He was giving me a little fatherly advice on dating and marriage and such. I was happy and quite content when the conversation started and while I know he meant well, by the end of the conversation I was feeling more than a little sad.

Not the down and out I hate my life and wish someone would roll over me with an 18 wheeler kind of sad. Not even the I need to sit in my room with a box of tissues and an even bigger bucket of Ben and Jerry’s kind of sad. Just a deep sigh of I want something more kind of sad.

You see, Im single, and thirty and sometimes I just feel really alone. This is a world built for couples, for families and I am tired of being just me.

There was a time, and not so very long ago that I would have been a little ashamed to admit that so openly and brazenly. But its true. Somehow its easy to feel ashamed of those desires as though by saying that I want to be married I am admitting to being a mindless knit wit of a girl who sees value in herself only if she is loved by someone. It’s not that I feel that I am getting so old, or that I see all my friends married and feel left out, it’s not that I feel that I must be unlovable if I don’t have some man doting on me and getting down on one knee to propose. It’s not even that I am often lonely, although I am. It’s none of those things.

I am a pretty confident person, I have made my own way in the world, determined my path in life, set out on an adventure that I never would have dreamed possible, traveled the world, met all kinds of people, seen some really amazing and some really awful things. I have lived alone in my own place and enjoyed the independence of doing what I want when I want without worrying about another person. I have earned a degree, written a book, performed on stage, had many different experiences that I am really glad that I have had.

But I want to find out what married couples fight about and start fighting…and making up. I want to have someone who calls during the day just to see how my day was. To have someone who will hold me when I am having pain, who will listen when I need to talk and who will talk with me. I want to go to the grocery store and buy for more than one. I want to pick up someone else’s clothes and put them in the hamper when he forgets. I want to have inside jokes and memories that come with years of living with a person and knowing them so well that you can get as much from a look as you could from a whole paragraph.

I want a family, a baby, children, a mess in the house, piles of laundry to do. I want the bad days when dinner burns, the baby wont stop crying, the dishwasher broke and I just want to sit on the floor in defeat and wonder if I am crazy to be trying this at all. And I want the good days too where everything goes well and my husband arrives home to a tasty dinner on the table and our brilliant children quietly helping with chores and me looking more beautiful than ever greeting him at the door with a kiss. (Ok so maybe that’s asking for a bit much) I want to bring a spirit into this world, a human being and watch them grow, and teach them and see them grow into an individual. I want the satisfaction of knowing that I created something so complete and perfect, and amazing as a little person! I have loved being by myself! I really have but now I want to start spending the rest of my life with someone. I want to start a family and look forward to grand kids, I want to move on. What I don’t want is to be married just to get it done. I am happy single…most of the time. But I would still rather be single and unhappy than married and unhappy. At least then you have something to look forward to. I read this quote today from a book called the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie society. It goes like this. ” I can’t think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can’t talk to, or worse, someone I can’t be silent with.”
And so at the end of the day, when I come home and briefly cross paths with my roommates ( who I love and adore), eat my dinner alone and then sit here and complain to the universe at large about my desire to be married. I refuse to feel small and insignificant, I wont feel like a simple, sweet, girl, who just wants to be married. I will be happy with my life and accomplishments, I will look forward to the next stage of life. I will feel like a grown woman who wants more out of life than what I have and I wont be ashamed.