177: us single, them married

A college classmate shared an article entitled "I Suck at Being a Friend Right Now." I knew I needed to read it because sometimes I have a hard time extending grace to my married friends. After reading it (click on the link!), I remembered something I had written in my journal. It's a little incoherent (b/c that's how I roll) but it's my reminder to myself that singles and marrieds are in vastly different seasons of life, and yet the gap between the seasons is extremely thin.

Do the unthinkable and let me not forget the feeling of walking in black mirrored fog.

It can feel like an "us" singles, "them" not. But there is a VERY thin veil between the two, with no predictor when one of us will slip into "the other side." Even I, as I walk with you along the illusion of an unending garden walkway, unending walkway while "they" have the estate's manor, may suddenly, while yet griping at my interminable status, run smack into the middle of a concrete step, look up, and see the house only a pace away, hedged on either side and pulling me through its open door with nary a chance for a backward glance.

It feels interminable. It looks unending. And indeed it may seem our lot to tread the garden path and take advantage of living this life to the full.

But never presume that those magically sucked through the illusory veil felt less surprised than you, felt less keenly the disparency between "us" and "them," and did little but live to deserve the switch. So you, walking the VERY SAME PATH of the women before you, may one day stub your toe on the manor's step and have your life changed.

And then, what fools we will have been, thinking we would never reach the attainment of "them." What are they but us in a different season of life? What are we but a parallel life of theirs?

At the church potluck yesterday, I gazed around at the tables. So many people I know from other churches, now all of us attending the same church (what happens when you live in the same community all your life). But they over at that table, while my age, are married, having kids, and are able to interact as peers with other marrieds. And those, over there, while seemingly so much older than me when I was little, are now practically peers, if I could somehow bolster my confidence and bridge the gap between "me single," "them married." Instead, I sat with other single girls my age (goodness, I'm 31) and some teenagers. It's all in my head, I know it. It is a work in progress, to rise beyond the fact that my living conditions look fairly similar to how they did a decade ago and join a world where I may not be married or have kids but I am a peer with life experiences and the ability to exchange conversation just as well as if I did. Pathetic much? I'll get the hang of this by 40, I'm sure. :)