One of the joys of being single and childless is getting to do lots of activities with lots of different people. Not tied to one husband or wife and one set of children, I get the opportunity to fill my calendar with a plethora of names.
This can be exhausting, as sometimes it feels like I am constantly reaching out to people who don’t necessarily reach back, like if I don’t text first no one will ever text me, if I don’t invite myself over I’ll never get an invitation. Sadly, there is some truth to this. Since most of my friends are married with kids and all of my friends are busy, the reality is that I usually only hear from people if I reach out first. Some of this has to do with my singleness, as families tend to take precedence over single friends, but some of this just comes down to personality (where are my extroverted introverts at?). Even when I was one single among many singles, it fell to those of us who are a little more social to call and invite and text and show up.
There are times I yearn for the one person and kiddos assigned to me by God, the church, and the state of CA. Sometimes having a calendar filled with just a couple names sounds really nice, less hectic, less lonely, and more certain. The knowledge that someone will indeed be there next week, that I have a preassigned date to a friend’s wedding, or someone to go buy me Nyquil when I’m sick sounds divine.
On the other hand, there are moments when having the freedom to hop in my car and drive to a different city to see any old friend, to road trip to Vegas with two others, and then go to LA ComicCon with yet another two is incredible. The ability to hold many friends and family members in my heart, and try to schedule them on my calendar, is one of the reasons to be single in the first place. I can minister to many rather than a few, can try to love everyone God has placed in my life without having to prioritize just one.
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:34, says singleness can spare us some of the troubles in this life and can help us be more focused on the Lord’s plans for us rather than on a spouse. Our interests can be undivided. Interestingly, being able to focus on many friends and family members instead of just a spouse and kids helps my focus be less divided. I can ask “who would God have me serve, love, reach out to, hang out with today?” And the answer can be different. A husband or wife will usually need to answer “my spouse, my kids, and then maybe someone else if I have time.”
So these past two weekends of October brought me to Las Vegas with two of my best friends in the world, and then to LA ComicCon with my sister and her friend who I was meeting for the first time. I doubt a married version of Fawn would have been able to do both trips, one after the next, especially if I had children. Yay for the joy of single freedom! This might seem like I’m rubbing it in to those who can’t jaunt off for three days, but so often singleness can be restricting, full of what we can’t do, full of what we’re missing out on that most of the world has but we don’t, so it’s nice to focus on what we do have that is unique to us.
My Las Vegas weekend was filled with incredible food and drinks, actually winning a bit at the Wheel of Fortune penny slots (we are the mildest of gamblers!), dipping in the wave pool, then reading comic books and devotionals by the pool, getting dressed up to see a Cirque show or go to a nice dinner, and wandering around the casinos looking at the art. The best part was getting to spend a few days with two of my favorite human beings, besties since grad school. They too are single, and we’ve grown up as adults together. It’s nice to be around some guys who know me, understand my life, and love me through it all. Praise God for weekends like that one where all three of us (current or recovering workaholics) kept constantly stating, with great surprise, how relaxed we felt.
This weekend brought me to LA ComicCon with my sister and her friend, two married women with kids, and we had a different kind of fun. Lavender and I cosplayed Daria and Jane and truly enjoyed weeding out the 90’s fans and seeing their faces light up when they figure out who we were. It was a joy to get to know her friend, and introduce her to the comiccon life as it was her first one. As always, the best part was the people watching, though we did get some freakin’ adorable geek chic jewelry. Again, getting to whisk these two women away from their husbands and children for a few hours and bask in the world of geekdom brought me great joy, and I hope they both felt loved and encouraged by me in our hours spent together.
The next couple of months bring the holidays, and my calendar will fill up to the brim with as many friends and family members as I can fit. And yes, I will have to call and text and e-mail inviting myself over, and I will have to push aside my pride and reach out more than I’ll be reached out to. But I’ve got the space to do so, and the conviction that God would have me continue to love these people he’s placed in my life whenever possible. So praise God for a heart that is free to love many instead of a few.
And praise God that I also have those special moments when I can house-sit at a friend’s and have a place (and a doggo) to myself to recharge before the next round of social madness!
