A friend of mine read through my admittedly scanty collection of blog posts and said that I really needed to do more to explain what “single,” “Mormon,” and “female” have to do with each other, especially since I’m not using this blog as an extended personals ad.
Today is Valentine’s Day, which seems like an appropriate day to start answering her question–and to return to the blog since I have been away from it for far too long. If you know anything about my religion, you know that marriage is a good of the first order. Being united as a family for time and all eternity is not only a laudable goal, it is crucial to life beyond this brief mortal experience. It is both the great promise and the fundamental design of what we call the Plan of Salvation. So, being single at 42–soon to be 43–was not part of the plan growing up. I was always going to get married and have children…only I didn’t.
Now, like everyone, my life is a mixed bag. There is a lot about being single that gives me great joy, just as I am sure there would be a lot about being married that would give me great joy. The opposite is also true. There is a lot about being single that gives me great sorrow–and I have seen enough of marriage to know that it’s not all smiles and sunshine. So, this isn’t about whether being single is good or bad; it’s more about the fact that it just is. It’s the circumstance of my life for the time being, so I’d better deal with it.
And that’s what I’ve been doing since I was about 27 and it started to really hit me that my life might not go according to plan: I began grappling in earnest with the question, “If I’m not going to be a wife and mother, what am I going to be?” What’s a girl to do with herself?
Over the years, the answer to that question has continued to evolve, but the shortest and most obvious answer is, “Be the best person you can, regardless of whether you get married now or ever.”
It’s not that simple, of course. It never is, for anyone, married, single, widowed, divorced. We’re all trying to figure out how our lives fit into a universe that is constantly sending us off in directions we didn’t expect. So, I continue to grapple with the question because the stakes of the answer keep changing as my life does. When I was 27, the answer wasn’t nearly so serious because there was still a lot of time in which I could get married and have children. Now, in my early 40s, there’s still a lot of time in which I could get married, but not so much time to have children. Maybe none, at least not here in this mortality.
I’m really okay with that. I’m sad about it, but I’m determined not to allow it to render my life meaningless (as some of my less-informed fellow saints might inaccurately believe). One way I look at it, being single gives me added impetus to examine how I’m living my life in the context of the gospel since I don’t have easy answers to “Who am I supposed to be?” One of the most important things I’ve learned in the process is that no one really has an easy answer to that question, even if they think they do. The best we can do is live with as much intention as possible, whatever our circumstances.
So, Happy Valentine’s Day. I used to dread this day and be somewhat bitter about it. But I have come to appreciate that we have a day–even if it’s mostly an extended advertisement for the greeting card/chocolate/floral/jewelry industries–where we celebrate love. Love takes a lot of forms, and I have many of them in my life, even if right now romantic love isn’t one of them. For a world that seems more hate-filled every day, I can embrace a day when saying “I love you”–to someone, anyone–is almost mandatory.
Next time, we’ll focus on the “female” part…
singledaughterofgod 