the single girl pendulum
Dear Lord, please help me understand why I feel like I’m going to be single until I die. I don’t want to settle, but I feel like there’s probably no one out there for me. Blah, blah, blah.
It’s a sad and depressing little prayer isn’t it? It’d been mine off and on for the past couple of months now. The cheese and whine sort of prayer that you know would tempt anyone other than the almighty God to throw lightning bolts at me and fry my pathetic, crybaby tail.
It’s the same story, played out repeatedly. I’ll spare you the boring details. I’ll just say that no matter how confident a single woman is, at some point there’s bound to be some fear or worry. Maybe it doesn’t render itself in such a fantastically whiney way, but its there.
I’ve been on this sort of single-girl pendulum for the past couple of years. And, while I tend to stray towards the normalcy point in the middle, I’ve been swinging between absolute fear and utter contentment for the past couple of months. Some days I worry that I’ll be that 40 year old with 3 million cats (which is doubly scary to me given how much I dislike satan cats). Other days, I’ll think about how I used to live…a life with dirty socks scattered on living room tables and bathrooms decorated with outdated issues of Car and Driver and Sports Illustrated…and I’m blissfully aware of how nice it is to be single. I guess, coupled or not, the grass is always greener on the other side.
I think the past day or two have been responsible for slowing the sway of my pendulum and leaving me in a happy stasis between normal and content. I think this has a lot to do with pancakes (which, I’m sorry, is an inside joke that only a very small handful of you will understand) and a couple of guy-conversations that have reminded me of everything I don’t want….things like overconfidence used to mask insecurity and so-huge-let-me-suffocate-all-living-creatures-in-the-state egos that are probably also used to mask insecurity.
Recent events have made me pause and wonder if all I have to choose from at this stage of the game are the insecure, socially inept, and self-absorbed crazies. I’ve decided that this probably isn’t the case, and that God is likely protecting me from myself and using these incidents to teach me more about who I am in him. For example, I’m learning to rely on him and not my speedo for social skills (juuuuust kidding!). In all seriousness, though, I’m learning more about what I want versus what I need and what that looks like in the wild.
Moreover, if I want a 1 Corinthians type of love, I have to work harder on a Romans 12 type of self-sacrifice so that when the time comes, I’ll be able to use that to be a good steward of a godly relationship. At least, that’s where my quiet time this morning led me.
Mmmm, panckaes.
Right on girl!