Tag: Singleness

On Old Insecurities

It was a Friday night, and I found myself feeling a little panicked. I NEEDED to dye my hair. Now for those of you who know me, you know well that I’ve been dying my hair various shades of burgundy/red/purple/etc. since the 1990’s, so this is nothing new. But I get lazy and also like my hair to be healthy, so I usually let it go a couple months between home box dye jobs and the used-to-be-dark-brown-but-are-now-pretty-grey roots rarely bother me. That Friday, however, I felt compelled to get my hair back to its fresh, bright, new burgundy.

Why that specific day, you ask? I had an outdoor event to attend on Saturday. With like 15 people. In LA. Gasp!!!

Looking at the RSVP list online, I knew the vast majority of the attendees would be friends – people who have seen me in various states of my life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. They are all supportive, encouraging, lovely people who accept me as I am and seem to genuinely enjoy my presence. People I lived life with for 10 years before moving out of LA. But after 2 years of living the life of a trying-to-keep-my-mum-and-littles-alive-during-a-global-pandemic hermit, my brain was off and running.  Insecurities from over a decade ago loomed large and negative views of myself I had overcome popped back up, unbidden. Just – POOF! There they were!

I found myself scrolling through that RSVP list to see who all would be there, and started categorizing the differences between them and myself.

  • They were all thin and/or fit (significantly more so than my plus size self)
  • They were all stylish (ah, fashionable LA)
  • They all had great teeth (well, better than mine, which is not difficult)
  • They were almost all married (all but 1 or 2)

After this quick assessment, my brain informed me that I would be the one and onely chubby single friend, who had never had braces, in the tent-like maxi-dress.

So that Friday night, I texted my sister and bestie that I was dying my hair because I felt super frumpy. Which my autocorrect changed to grumpy. Appropriate.

Once I realized what my brain was thinking (that doesn’t always happen right away, you know?), I found it fascinating. I spent years in my late 20’s/early 30’s coming to terms with my weight and had decided that, for me, it was healthiest to accept being plus sized and move on with my life rather than keep trying to lose weight and have it constantly on my mind, feeding into my already-prone-to-depression self. It was and is freeing. The concern about fashion was an odd one for me, as I’ve always kind of done my own thing. The thing about being one of the only single people there is something I’ve dealt with for 2 decades now, and doesn’t usually bother me. And the teeth thing? Where did that come from? I don’t think that even bothered me when I lived in LA! So weird!

I sat back and pondered these intrusive thoughts and where they’d come from. Since I have barely socialized these past 2 years, and rarely in a large group, it seems to have brought back some very unexpected insecurities. It was more fascinating to me than concerning to have my mind wander to these places it hadn’t for so long. I could look at these thoughts and go “that’s interesting” but not let them get to me. I think the not socializing for 2 years may have some unknown side effects in my life, which I find intriguing. 

As these thoughts were all ones I had processed and come to terms with ages ago, I was able to hold them out away from me and look at them with curiosity, then tuck them safely away with a younger, less healthy version of my past self. 

Yes, I did dye my hair that night – but I did so like I always do, because I enjoy having reddish hair. It makes me feel confident and a little punkrock, most like myself. It looks healthier and is easier to take care of. And I enjoyed it because I no longer felt the NEED to look better. 

The party was enjoyable, everyone (as I suspected) was kind, happy to see me, positive, and non-judgmental. I was a bit of a wallflower for some moments of it, but that is normal for my awkward self and something I don’t mind. And yes, for curious minds, I was indeed the only plus sized person there, and only one of a couple singles. I didn’t actually notice anyone’s teeth, so can’t make a call on that, and they were all pretty freakin’ stylish, but I somehow fit in just fine.

What’s the moral of the story, you ask? It’s not that kind of a story. This is merely a descriptive personal tale of one moment of my life, not a universally prescriptive parable. The only universal truth in this is that socializing is hard for many of us, and can dredge up some past insecurities we thought were gone forever. When that happens, we’ll all just deal with them the best we can in that specific moment, with the capacity and resources we have available at that specific time. Godspeed to you all as you head out to (safely) socialize once again.

Grieving Is Difficult in a Society That Worships Happiness

Welcome back to the blog series on Grieving an Unfulfilled Future, during which I will explore 5 different aspects often included in grief for the single and childless by comparing our grief with that of someone who grieves the death of a loved one. For the fifth and final theme, I will explain how our society’s obsession with happiness makes grieving even more difficult, especially for those who don’t get the “happily ever after” our culture presents as the goal.

Our culture – modern America, the media, and the white evangelical church – allows for grief up to a point, then expects us to move on. When we lose a loved one, we are hugged and cared for for a period of time. We are expected to be sad, to cry, and to withdraw a bit. For awhile. But there comes a time when every grieving person will hear “didn’t they die awhile ago?” “Why aren’t you moving on?” “Shouldn’t you be better by now?” We are expected to process death in a healthy way, go through whatever the steps are in popular psychology or biblical counseling at that time, lament, grieve, and move forward.

America, the media, and even our churches worship happiness. We are allowed to be sad for a time, but if we don’t get back to happy at a certain point, we must be doing something wrong. When those of us who have lost loved ones realize you don’t “move on” from grief, you just learn to live with it and grown around it, it can be a shock to those around us.

Imagine this expectation to process grief, then get over it and get back to happy, when lots of people don’t even realize we’re grieving? When we ourselves might not even know that’s what is happening? Imagine the expectation for us to be just fine while we are actually in the middle of trying to understand the greatest loss of our lives. Imagine people being sympathetic, but to an even lesser point, because it’s not like anyone died or anything.

Imagine trying to deal with the sadness, heartbreak, regret, anger, and fear that come with true grief, all while trying to convince ourselves and others we’re ok because we don’t realize we’re allowed to take the time to lament and grieve. Because others certainly don’t understand this – not pastors, not friends, not family, not even some counselors. Because there is not GriefShare for those of us who have lost all hope for our future, but no one actually died. Because there are very few books that address this. Because we are still expected to be happy for everyone else around us while we have a gaping wound inside our hearts that is still untouched by any healing.

When we accept that happiness is not always the goal, and that much of life will include a complex mix of joy and sadness as well as the entire range of emotion and experience, we will be in a better position to help those who are grieving, including ourselves. We need people to weep with us and sit quiet as we lament, recognizing our loss for what it is – a deep heartbreak, not some shallow papercut. We need people who will walk alongside us when the grief hits hard, and remind us that our lives are still valuable, that God still loves us, that our pain is real, that we are seen.

Thank you for joining me for these past few blog posts on grieving singleness and childlessness. These 5 points I’ve presented over the past few blog posts are by no means the only aspects of this type of grief, I just wanted to give you a window into what this experience can be like for many of us.

If you are heartbroken over the loss of your dreamt-of-future with a spouse and/or children, please know you are not alone and the grief you feel is real. It is valid. And you do not have to suffer in shame and silence. 

If you are the friend or family of someone going through this grief, I hope these past few posts help you better understand some of what they may be going through so you can walk alongside them, just as I hope you would if they were grieving the death of a loved one.

Grief Is Made More Difficult by Other People’s Pain and Expectations

Welcome back to the blog series on Grieving an Unfulfilled Future, during which I will explore 5 different aspects often included in grief for the single and childless by comparing our grief with that of someone who grieves the death of a loved one. For the fourth theme, I will explore how the single/childless person’s grief can be made even more difficult by other people’s pain and their expectations. We do not grieve in a vacuum, so our depression and anxiety over our loss can be exacerbated by the response of others to our situations.

When our loved ones die, part of the pain we experience comes from knowing that others are also in pain because they are gone. When we read about a car accident in which a couple are killed, we feel even more pain when it goes on to say they are survived by their 3 young children. When my first friend died as a teenager, I was sad for myself but ached even more for his parents and sister. When a woman has a miscarriage, she goes through her own grief but also feels the burden of her partner’s, parents’, and the rest of the family’s. She also has to figure out how to process new pressures to try again so she can give them all the child, grandchild, niece, nephew they want.

I once heard a young pastor loudly express his frustration about a young widow in the church because she still had photos of her dead husband up in her house and she hadn’t started dating again. It had been 2 years, after all, and she had kids to consider. This widow had her own grief to deal with, as well as the added pressure of her pastor to “move on.” 

Sometimes, other people make the grieving process much more difficult.

For the single person or the childless, the grief over not being able to fulfill our own dreams and goals is compounded by the expectations of those around us to get married and have kids. It is hard enough coming to terms with the new knowledge that we most likely will never marry, but this is heightened when all the lovely old ladies at church keep saying there’s still hope, and God has someone for everyone, and it’ll come just when you least expect it. Ugh.

It’s hard to process heartbreak and move toward a true contentment in one’s singleness when parents, grandparents, and others can pressure and even shame you about getting married. When society automatically thinks something must be wrong with you if you’re still single. When the church constantly preaches the holiness and superiority of married life. When friends never stop pressuring you to “try online dating!” (as if you haven’t already done that, come on people!).

For the childless, this pressure can also be extreme. Parents who keep asking when you’re going to make them grandparents, those same lovely little old ladies at church that keep asking the couple when they’re going to have a baby, the pope saying that couples who don’t want to have kids are being selfish. All of this messaging makes grieving the fact that you can’t have the kids you want hurt even more.

We need the support and comfort of our friends, families, and churches – not added pressure.

Friday morning I will present the fifth and final theme of the series: Grieving an Unfulfilled Future, so make you are subscribed or check back then. I’ll look into how grieving is incredibly difficult in a society that worships happiness, especially for those of us who don’t fit the model of “happily ever after.”