Grateful Single

Very recently I have started to see the penny drop with regards to my single state in life. I have a few things that I am particularly grateful for.
I don’t have to ask permission.
If I want to stay out later at night, if I want to go to a Goth club, if I want to wear my hair a certain way, if I want to talk to a male friend, if I want to go on vacation, I don’t have to ask for permission. Which is a truly beautiful thing. I know so many marrieds who conditionalize everything with “I’ll have to see what the wife thinks” or “My husband would prefer we stay in tonight.”
What I can take away from this as a longer term lesson is that if I am ever supposed to get married, me and the future Mr. Right had better have a very good understanding about such things. I don’t want to ask him for permission on a regular basis, and I don’t want him to have to ask me either. The ideal situation would be that we would specify things that were important- like a special dinner, an anniversary, or even just a ‘bad day’ where mutual support would be greatly appreciated. Other than that we could come and go like grownups- no asking for permission in a marriage of equals. Does that make sense or am I approaching this a bit too much like ‘roomies with benefits’? At any rate, this requires grown-up style communication skills- not sarcasm, not guessing games, not isolationism. If you’re not perfectly honest about what you want and need, the other person can’t know what you’re thinking!
I don’t have to worry about infidelity
Committing to marriage is a Big Damn Commitment, and one that for the right person I would undertake very gladly. But here’s the scary thing- we’re humans. Humans fall, make mistakes and occasionally even run off. A childhood friend of mine was sixteen when her dad up and left with a woman half his age. Granted, he was on mega-painkillers so maybe he wasn’t exactly in his right mind but it doesn’t change the fact that he did it and is responsible on some level. It was devastating to the wife he left behind to raise six kids. They had to sell their house and give away the dog, move to a terrible neighborhood, and the two oldest girls put thoughts of college on hold to work to support Mom and younger siblings. And that’s just the easily quantifiable bad stuff. He wasn’t there for his older teen daughters, when a dad is vitally important to help sort through potential boyfriends (whether or not the daughter agrees with that!). He wasn’t there for his younger teen sons, who at that age desperately need Dad to be a strong role model when peer pressure is strong.
If I ever get married, I’m a little afraid that a corner of my mind will always think I have it way too good and that one day Hubby will find a cuter, younger model and vamoose. Rational fear? Dunno. But it does exist. While I’m single, I don’t have to worry about worrying about infidelity. Yay! One less thing to worry about!
I don’t have to worry about my ability to have children
In this day and age when lots of people are choosing NOT to have kids, or ‘have dogs instead’, this may seem a bit out-dated. But I would like to have kids. In fact, I would so like to have kids that if I never marry I would rather like to adopt- if I can as a single parent… I think you must be able to somehow. I have a second cousin who did that and I think she and her daughter are awesome!
So, my worrying about my ability to have children. My mom miscarried at least three times that we know about. Both my brother and I were ‘miracle babies’. I have a friend who has recently dealt with a miscarriage. I am quite frankly terrified by the idea. As amazing as it must be to have new life inside of you, the flip side of the coin is if something goes wrong, someone died inside of you. That’s terrifying for me. And I think that I would not cope well with that. I might be too scared to ever try again.
But as long as I’m single, it’s not a worry! Hurrah! It is proper to me in my current state (especially in my state of employment at present!) to be childless. But that doesn’t mean I’m not called to be a mother. I’m called to be a spiritual mother at present. Weird, hm? That means I have to pray for people around me who are sort of like my family- in addition to my family of course. Or I could spiritually adopt some children in danger of abortion. Either way, I am responsible to pray for people and do other mom-like things in a spiritual way.
Weirdly enough a few months ago someone asked me if I had any children because I seemed like a motherly person. At the time I didn’t quite know what to think of that. When I seemed confused they said they wondered because I seemed pretty mature for my age… I get that a surprising lot but I also get the “You’re not really __ years old are you? _Really_? You seem a lot younger!” Maybe it all averages out or something….
I know I have many other things to be grateful for, but this is going to be the short list for now. More to follow as the ideas occure to me.