“Honey, just live your life.”
My mom would say that every time I got anxious—pretty much the past 10 years of comparing myself to other women who already got on the marriage train. What other daughters my age have compared themselves to the generation behind them—or the ones behind those? I’m sure a lot have. CONTEXT of time and place you are born into is everything. I find myself comparing where she was at 30 (married with three kids) and wonder when I will accomplish even half that. Women put so much pressure on themselves these days. That’s why I’m glad I have a mom who never has judged my relationship status, consistently reminds me I’m enough, I’m whole and I should Just. Keep. Living. My. Life. In the meantime, I have some thoughts to get off my chest regarding love, dating and life trajectories…
I never thought I would be that 35-and-yet-to-be-married-with-kids woman. I often feel like I‘m missing out on the Greatest Adventure of which even an enriching career, vast amount of supportive friends/family/relatives can’t take the place. I’ve realized the ledger of society’s acceptance of you as a worthy female will always be hinged on the fact you are “spoken for'“—i.e. that you have a boyfriend, fiancé, husband. Although I am held in regard among my peers, their fondness over my accomplishments and unique life experiences will not replace that stubborn fact of life.
I often think about the times I gather with my mom—the contrast of a path I took compared to hers. I never wanted it this way, it was by neccessity. I actually always wanted it to turn out like hers. She met my dad serendipitously in the middle of nowhere Alaska when she was 20. I’ve always thought my love story was going to parallel theirs. Granted it was another time and place, no matter how many years we get into the world of online dating, it is still the most soulless way of initially making a connection with another human being. Whenever I did partake in that realm, I felt like a commercial cow with nameless I.D. #25893 wading through the crud in a digital meat market.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m too self aware, too apprehensive—maybe my strengths are perhaps my downfalls in this particular arena of life. I heard a sad fact the other day: women with high IQs have a tougher time finding marriageable men, while men with high IQs have an easier time finding marriageable women sigh. I’ve put my best foot forward in my connections with men, my career, my health and fitness, expanding my social capital and creating new experiences for myself and others—AND STILL I have yet to yield a solid return on investment (in the fact I’m not a wife and mother yet). If I’m ever going to rise up from the dissapointment, I need to shift my perspective because I have no control over the fate of love coming into my life. It’s also for the past few years I have become more consciously aware of my T.O.M., as I get thinking, “oh, another one bites the dust, Whitney!” (referring to my precious eggs). It’s a sad-funny time, but what am I going to do? Settle for mere primal needs over genuine long-lasting connection to a man? For thousands of years love was more functional than all these other things we weigh it down with today. But I don’t believe in divorce or single motherhood for myself—those things terrify me. I’m a traditional girl but with a modern conundrum: I wish I could settle with the often half-hearted chemistry I’ve come across with gentlemen (while theirs was full hearted) but part of my mind cringed living with that kind of deficit. I’m programmed one foot in the old world and another foot in the new. Enter the two polarities residing within me…
POLARITIES: A UNIQUE TENSION WITHIN WOMEN
The first one is the traditional 1950’s house wife that has been nagging at me since I graduated college. The female genes passed down for thousands of years that have been hard wired in us to reproduce children at the average age of 21. Yea, THAT nagging girl (AKA our biological clock is another name for her). Most people joked that I went to Duke university to get my MRS degree. I remember being puzzled by that (goes to show I was way behind on the wife-me-up lingo) in my early 20s but I quickly realized what that meant: going to college to find a husband. Smart women ya’ll were! Even if I did know that, it still would have changed little about my trajectory: I was a late bloomer, still getting comfortable with myself and had enough self awareness to know any relationship I would get into would be short lived. I was a wreck inside at the time: full-ride scholarship athlete who was injured her freshman year trying to get back to the glory with which I first entered college. I was a world away from going to college to get my MRS degree. Heck, the first time I heard of this “subculture” of women was when my older sister went to college at SMU. She told me that a lot of the ladies booked out the popular campus chapel for their wedding date several years in advance—before they were even dating their future spouse! Oh yea, it’s a real thing down South.
The second polarity is straight out of Ne-yo’s hit song “Miss Independent”: one of autonomy disregarding the screaming maternal side within us ladies. It’s this time and place in history I was born into: the female experience is beyond what any prior generation could fathom. (and I’m not talking about the sexual liberation movement here, although I expounded on that in a previous blog). I’m talking about PURPOSE-DRIVEN life altering opportunities that are helping women realize their place in this 21st century world that has made us more multi dimensional. And boy, did I fight that, believe it or not! I fought the notion of being a career artist. That’s why, when people I ask me about how I got started, I tell them the old adage “art chose me, I didn’t choose it.” I didn’t plan to be this entrepreneur and making a name for myself—again, I thought I was going to marry at 25 and have three kids by now just like my mom. Thus, when I see other women who fulfilled the opposite polarity in me, I fall into this deep pit of despair and it’s hard to dig myself out of it. But there is only so much we can control. I’m in my career not because I put off marriage and motherhood, but because it was my Plan B. This is all by necessity and what a beautiful life one can create by necessity when all they got is two sticks—you gotta make that fire, girl! Not to mention the modern cushion of our 21’st century post-industrial complex sure does make it easy to put off marriage and motherhood—there are so many opportunities to light our paths. No one else is going to light my happiness at the end of the day, so improvising my circumstances is a way to light that fire. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies Under the Tuscan Sun. It’s a lesson in gratitude, almost a paradigm shift of how the main character Frances (recently divorced) views life and the often narrow definitions of the quintessential milestones that denote “happiness”. For instance, early on in the movie, she proclaims that she wants a house, a wedding and a family. By the end of the movie, she has her house, an adopted Italian family and has hosted a wedding in her backyard. Granted, it was not hers but her desires did manifest in another beautiful way (then—spoiler alert!—enters the hot photographer right before the credits roll).
I’ve had to reconcile these two polarities within me—the latter taking more presidence since I still am not betrothed like the former would like. What I’ve learned in the process is that a man can not be a proxy to your deep self worth. But, when I peal back the layers of my spousal and maternal yearnings, it’s not about the sex and the man—its the legacy. It’s a jumpstart to the comfort of waking up when you are 50 years old with your husband and having your beloved kids or grandkids burst in the doorway to shower you with love. It’s the stressful but life-invigorating chaos of having a family (there was 6 in my family growing up—go figure) that enriches the soul in a different way than just being peacefully single like I am now. It’s projecting that beautiful long game.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have this amount of self awareness—it’s lonely on the mountain top. Nonetheless, I’d rather be up here then down there. I‘ve seen plenty of “fake fires”—fake relationships, fake marriages. Its rampant in this country. There’s nothing worse than being lonely in a relationship—I’d rather be lonely alone for that matter. Even if it’s a good man on paper: if he does not feed my soul, it screams for air and it will be heard sooner than later. I’ve resolved that me and my man will be a “creative couple”: they move differently in this world, enriching other people around them with as much as a minor passing by the street. That’s the power those coupledom yield. So, that helps me keep things in perspective—and not because I have this schadenfreude towards a couple’s downfalls, it’s just I’m glad to have not wasting it on unauthentic, fleeting love (with which life has tempted me so many times). I wish I could roll the dice like some women do. I've realized we women all take a risk: a risk to stay single through our fertile years while holding out for better love prospects OR a risk to tie it down with an average kinda love during their young fertile child bearing years. Each has a cost benefit. Living a fulfilling life while taking the former risk, I’ve had to dig deep within my tender feminine soul and pull out this masculine scrappy (as my mom calls it) hustler attitude to improvise my circumstances and create my own happiness. Perhaps it’s in my blood? I do come from a 3rd generation commercial fishing family in Alaska where my self-employed dad put me and my siblings to work at a young age. That was another era of my life that shaped me more than I would come to realize as I stoically faced my journey through the valleys of singlehood.
FEMINISTS Don’t hold the CREDIT where they’d like
There is a common misconception about the “working woman” on the career fast track, especially to those in the manosphere. Few women are actually doing this out of sheer will like you would think. I’d say most woman are in my place out of necessity and not because of the feminism/girl power narrative that pervades our culture. Sure, there is the camp of career women that are unintentional about their love lives and have been through many partners—but not my camp of God-fearing conservative-leaning women who are looking for a husband, not a boyfriend. Another thing: fewer men are going to college which means less chances of marriages for college educated gals. Woman naturally want hypergamy and not a lot of women will get with men in their 20s when they are in the baby stages of building their wealth. So, this is an underlying reason women get into the workforce.
Unfortunately the negative credits of feminism outweigh the positive ones. To the feminist’s chagrin, this is seen in the cheapening of sex and dating. If you have not been living under a rock, everybody knows modern dating is a cluster fudge. It starts with the indefinite chapter of adolescence that men are given—by the women in their lives—a free pass to live in until the age of….well, whenever they decide to leave it! Not many have marriage on their mind, and why would they when its socially acceptable to have sex by the third date (average, according to statistics—yikes). What I find interesting is that the word “adolescence” didn’t enter the dictionary until the 70s! Another peculiar fact: the word “dating” didn’t come onto the scene until the early 1900’s. It was a more casual and opaque substitute for the traditional word “courtship.” While dating has become even more casual, conversely marriage has become a more lofty rite of passage, a form of self actualization which is the highest on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But, ironically, what sabotages reaching that laurel wreath of victory in coupledom is the fact that we are not properly preparing for the marriage. The concept of marriage as the I’ve-made-it-cherry-on-top status symbol of adulthood has been gaining traction in the past couple generations. But what about staying married? If only people knew how much their dating habits actually impact what happens after the alter. Modern dating is training you more for a divorce down the line than an actual solid life-long marriage.
70 years and 180 degrees ago…
I often have to remind my grandmother that the default in dating norms today is a 180 from the 1950s when she was dating my grandfather. Being that, sex was off the table until marriage—there was no given that it would happen by the 3rd date as is the so prevalent now. And here we thought women weren’t liberated back then: my 20 year old grandma held more powerful reigns than a female CEO in 2022. Men and women all be so proud of the notches on their belts while they forget it’s the lowest common denominator—am I the only who thinks sex is the easiest act in the world!? To all the people out there who think they are so special because they have a sex drive: get the f over yourself. My grandparents were virgins before marriage and lived one of the most beautiful and authentic relationships I know to this day. In my generation, you have to coyly tell your guy “I’m waiting”. Most men think that’s cute and endearing but beyond that they are so accustomed to this over sexualized culture that it doesn’t matter that you are wife material: their early connection with a woman is at the lowest common denominator because society has taken sex out of marriage and celebrates that. From the 1960’s and on, the vicious cycle of women obliging to this and followed the men’s “lead” further entraps both parties from the practice of self control. To make humanity more aware of its self distructing habits and lack of boundaries in romance, I think we need billboard signs everywhere that read “What we gain too easily, we esteem too lightly.”
Speaking from my own experiences, dating has been fun 50% of the time—and an existential crisis the other 50%. Nobody was ready for me, I guess. Granted, I’m not a virgin female saint but I am an old soul romantic living in a Brave New World. Lately, I find myself reflecting back on my prolonged singlehood, Thank God my high sex drive was tempered by my sacred outlook on intimacy—otherwise I would definitely be in the double digits by now! But it had to go somewhere: most of my sexual frustration was converted and used as energy for creating, amassing the large portfolio of art I have today. People always tell me “You’re so prolific!” and this is the main underlying reason for that. We need more people talking about the power of harnessing sexual energy into creativity, something called “sex transmutation” which former player Rob Kowalski talks a lot about. Defferral of gratification has been the secret to innovation and the release of creativity throughout time and millennia.
FINE LINES
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” Proverbs 13:12
Feeling despair set in is one of the worst feelings, is it not? I get thinking about my “parallel universe” where I am married and have two kids already. I yearn to be in that place where I can be “spoken for” and create that family unit. I look back on where I could have gone wrong and, honesty, I can confidently say I’ve put my best foot forward. At the end of the day I think its fate. That’s my conclusion after so many years and different ways of putting myself out there—its just been a lot of unrequited interest either on my part or the man’s, save for a few times of equalibrium. It’s been the most frustrating journey of my life—especially when I’ve been so steadfast in making my sexual apptitite wait the majority of it. I’m in the prime of my life and while everybody seems to be doing the deed around me I feel like I am wasting my youth on holding out the majority of it. I look in the mirror and see that my beauty has reached a cracedno, thinking Gee, I hope I meet him while I still look pretty and youthful. It’s pure despair and FOMO that runs through my veins in those moments.
No matter how at peace I am with myself, the flicker of madness in the form of icky comparison wars is what steals my joy—that being in the umbrage upon seeing wives with their children. I’ve realized there is a fine line between a person being aspirational and being something to envy—which is when I have this inner dialogue: “why her and not me? She is no better than me. Make it make sense, God!” This often leads to me feeling empty inside and disregarding my own uniqueness. It’s interesting because as I have yearned for a married life, I have come across women who have coveted my single life and remind me how lucky I am to have accomplished so much without all of the responsibilities of being a wife and mother. So the grass looks greener on both sides depending on which you are on. When I grow dismayed, I have to exercise stoicism upon doing everything right over the years to attain something that so many around me already have. I’ve realized the only way I’m going to survive emotionally is to surrender this confusion over to God and, with His supernatural hand, reframe my outlook on singlehood and marriage.
Become a BEST SELLER book in the meantime
“Well done, good and faithful servant!” Matthew 25:23
I keenly remember when I was in church one day day back in 2014 and the pastor said that verse. It has stuck with me like glue to this day. It has been a tender reminder for me to keep going through the wilderness God has assigned because someday, out of it, I will hear His voice saying that back to me when I have fulfilled the mission. Other things I have whispered to myself in the anxious moments of life are ”you are WHOLE, you are WORTHY, you are SURROUNDED—by God and the angels he sends in spiritual and human form to protect you and encourage you. We are all like “books” looking for a reader. So many will prance around your cover and not bother to get invested in the different chapters of your story. You pray every day for someone to pick you up like a book—and not let you down because your story is that riveting and the man is in the right time in his life to acknowledge it. I hope my prayer blankets a generation of eligible bachelorettes in their 30s that are feeling these same sentiments right now. I also have to constantly remind myself of the physical and psychological obstacles that I have conquered the past 15 years to stand here even stronger today. 10 years down the line looking back at this post, I hope to better understand the unique journey I am on currently in the present. Perhaps, in wrapping up my last sentiments, I will be quipping something like Reese Witherspoon’s character Melanie from the movie Sweet Home Alabama:
Lurlynn: It’s funny how things don’t turn out.
Melanie: It’s funny how they do…
Further reading/past blogs: Making Marriage En Vogue Again and This Slumber Party Is Over