I Will Not Be Sad or SAD or Whatever...

Valentine's Day

Hearts, candies, flowers and all those other thing that are marketed to us on this "special day" are everywhere. It would be easy (really, really easy) to post something that is bitter and nasty about this holiday (a created holiday, I might add) and spew about being alone once again...you all know the drill: single woman whines about these things and makes people around her feel sad or maybe uncomfortable (if she does it well, readers will laugh uncomfortably while feeling sad or thinking she's dark and needs psychiatric help). 

I will not do that this year, mostly because I love my friends and, hell, if they have significant others who love them and shower them with gifts or just hugs, HUZZAH!

What I Thought of Writing

Originally, I was going to post a short list of what should not be said to single people and possibly rant about how singles are often treated in a manner that seems to indicate that we are less than because we are not with someone. I even asked my lovely facebook friends (most of whom I actually know in real life and are part of my millions of readers) to help me construct this list. This exercise was educational. 

What Jess Learned 

1. A lot of my single friends and I share similar experiences:

   

   a. Having people who barely know us attempt to set us up with someone they know is perfect for you. 

   b. Having people comment about your singleness and/or not having children.

   c. Having people observe that the "right" person will eventually come into your life...if you wait. 

   d. Having people thinking that there is something wrong because you are single. 

At this point, I want to say that I'm not passing judgement on anyone. I'm just recording my research. 

2. That I may or may not be oversensitive about how I take the things people say and do in regards to my singleness. Some of my married friends observed that perhaps comments that hurt should be ignored or allowed to pass. These observations are valid. I think that it is easy to whine and be hurt by comments that are meant as attempts to support or encourage or express concern. Sometimes, however, I think our complaints are also valid, especially when comments are made by persons who have not taken time to learn our individual situations. Perhaps such comments are more bearable when we know that the commenter knows who we are and what our singleness means to us personally.

Most of the time, I can and do shake off the hurt and just chalk it up to the commenter not knowing the situation or attempting to be kind. Sometimes, however, it's hard to paste my "happy pastor's wife smile" (yes, this is a real thing that I learned when I was a pastor's wife [you heard me]). 

3. That when asked what things singles love to hear said in regards to their status, there were only a few answers:

    a. My friend, Beth, who was recently remarried (I love that!), said that she loved being told that she was a strong, brave woman because she faced raising children alone. I have to agree with her--those comments were often the ones that allowed me to keep going, especially in the early days after my divorce. 

    b. My friend, Jennifer (who is one of the coolest people I know) said that a friend once said to her that a if a straight man isn't married, there's something wrong with him, but if a straight woman isn't married, she's smart. I would observe that this could actually go both ways. I've met perfectly awesome straight, unmarried guys and really messed up straight, unmarried women. It's an interesting observation, however. 

Singles Awareness Day

So many people observe tomorrow as Singles Awareness Day. To me, this is just kinda wrongheaded because the term spells SAD. While Valentine's Day does make me sad at times, I've made a conscious decision to refuse to accept that tomorrow is sad or SAD. Why the hell is it sad that I am single? 

Instead, tomorrow is a day that will be awesome because:

1. I will be creative and work on this awesome story I'm writing. 

2. I will embrace being River Song (my friend Kathy has said that I am River Song, probably because I am a flirt and love good banter), and banter as much as I can tomorrow (not with my students---good grief, people, what DO you take me for?) because it's fun and I can and why not?

3. I will be AWESOME. I do not need to know that every kiss begins with Kay. I know that I am awesome. An actual kiss will just be a bonus on top of knowing that I am AWESOME. (The all caps only proves that, right?). 

4. I will most likely wait until Friday and purchase some chocolates for myself (at 50-75% off the retail the rest of you spent previous to Thursday) and revel in the fact that I will not have to share them. 

Tomorrow should not be Singles Awareness Day. God, that sounds so clinical, huh? Why not Singles Awesomeness Day? I wonder if we could get Neil Patrick Harris to do a PSA for that? 

And now a PSA

Conclusion(s)...

What I've come to over the years is that I'm not defined by my marital, relationshipal, or other -al status alone. Yeah, I'm single. Have been for (counts fingers...counts most of toes) a while. I'm also other things too. I'm a mom. I'm an artist. I'm a teacher. I'm funny and weird and love games (not the kind that screws with people, although I can also be a bit of a prankster) and learning (life-long student). 

I cannot let being single hold me back. Life is just too short. 

Sometimes, I am not going to lie to you, I am going to be sad or frustrated about being single. I will have to change the channel so I don't have to hear another woman squeal about how "he got it at Jarrod." I will look at certain holidays and miss certain rituals because I'm not with anyone and kissing a complete stranger is just weird as hell. 

Still, I will not allow myself to let it consume me. I hope, those of you in my millions of readers who are single like me, you will not allow it to consume you either. I hope that you will, instead, go out, have a lovely time, maybe have a beer and kick back while all those other schlubs scramble around tomorrow to find something to get their sweeties because they forgot. If we take off early from work, we can get a front row seat for that action, and it should be really fun. 

Cheers, my dears!