Don't Buy the Lie!

If you’ve been divorced (or never married) and are in midlife, male or female, you’ve heard time and time again that you shouldn’t NEED someone in your life.  You are ENOUGH by yourself.  You need to LOVE being single.  You have read articles and list after list of all the reasons why you should be so blessed to be all YOU need in your life! 

No one needs these lists for being coupled.  You don’t have to be told by a thousand experts why you are lucky to be in a healthy, loving relationship.  You don’t have to be told because already know!  No one has to remind you why companionship, affection, acceptance and comfort is good…our whole being…mind, soul, heart and body knows it’s good.    

So why do people work so hard to convince us that being single is the ultimate, and only after you find yourself incidentally single?  Doesn’t society tell us from day one that the ultimate goal is to be married with a white picket fence and 2.2 perfect children, a well-paying job, new cars, enviable vacations and plenty of fabulous friends? 

But the second we find ourselves uncoupled, well, we have to hear endless people, including all the “experts” tell us why we are lucky. Then almost in the same breath, those who care for us pummel us with questions about our status…are you dating?  Are you dating anyone special?  Then when you answer no, you see their disappointed faces and either you tell them some line about why you aren’t looking (even if you are) or they tell you how the world is your oyster and you should be loving it.

It can’t be both ways, folks! 

Now granted, if you’ve been through a midlife divorce, you have undoubtedly had people come out of the woodwork to tell you how much they dislike being married.  Or you can now use your post-divorce-spidey-sense to see that many people really aren’t happy with their relationships despite how happy they make it look on facebook. 

Honestly, it’s the ‘experts’ (who by and large, aren’t even single) that go on and on about how we need to be content with our singleness.  Even in my church-going days, the married women would say…”Once you are content being single is when your husband will come along.”  Really?  No!  This is why the second any of us, male or female, meet someone we have a spark and connection with we turn into mushy teenagers at the speed of lightning! 

We are also urged to appear fierce in our singleness, neglect vulnerability and therefore feel we can’t openly express our very basic God-given need…which is relationship.  And heaven forbid we be real about this common need on a dating profile!  The person of the opposite sex has now been programmed to read that must be needy, clingy, desperate or looking for a sugar daddy if you mention your real desire to find someone.  Um…hello!  Aren’t we on dating websites to find love?  Let’s just agree to be real about THAT little known fact, which by the way, is backed by a two billion industry.  Yeah, those moguls are laughing all the way to the bank at the games we play and the lies we’ve bought into that prevent us from really finding love and keep us coming back for more…because they know unless we change our mindset, we will make the same mistakes time and again. 

Don’t get me wrong…I’m a pretty independent person.  I’m determined, driven when I want to be, intuitive and a great problem solver.  I’m also an introvert by nature (except in the bedroom), a fairly peaceful and quiet person (again, except in the bedroom)…and I NEED and crave alone time (except in the bedroom!)  There are things I enjoy about being single and being free of expectations someone else might put on me.  But what if it brings MORE joy to my life to be able to cook for someone else, to do something loving or sacrificial for the person I care about vs doing that same thing JUST for myself.   What if fulfilling those expectations for someone else, which is the ultimate expression of love, actually makes your life better?

I don’t need a man to complete me.  Nor would I want to be with a man who needed someone to complete him.  I’ve always liked the 1 x 1=1 thinking about couples versus the two halves make a whole.  But I do want to complement him and for him to complement me.  (That’s complement…as in add value to or enhance, but compliments are always great, too!)  I am looking for a man that makes me a better version of myself and I would like to feel I am the same for him.  This, of course, doesn’t mean when I am not dating someone I am a lesser person, either.

What’s wrong with admitting we would like someone to eat dinner with at the end of the day, discuss our happenings, world events and laugh at life’s little mishaps?  What’s wrong with wanting to wake up with someone who doesn’t look their best in the morning?  What’s wrong with knowing your coffee time would be just a little better if you were sitting snuggled close to someone on the couch?  Then there’s knowing that parties are harder to go to alone and having someone to just call or text during the day when it’s a particularly good one or even when it’s not so good, makes the day just a little bit better.  And of course, sex…don’t even TRY to pretend it’s better alone…as I always say…(okay, Marvin Gaye said it first) “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby!”  And those that would argue no-strings-attached sex is more desirable to sex with a loving partner who you can sexually engage any time you want, I say “Bollocks!”   

So I’m giving myself permission and I’d love for yourself permission, too…sure we can be complete, whole and emotionally stable singletons who aren’t desperate to be completed by some other person.  We can be strong, we can know what we want….and what we want is to find love!  It’s okay to admit it to yourself!  It’s okay to say it out loud!    It’s okay to put on your dating profile!  It’s okay to share with your date!  It’s okay to be who really are, to freely feel and express what you really need…that’s confidence, that’s independence, that’s damn sexy!  

Grateful when it's not quite enough...

I’ve been working on this post for days…because it’s one of those days I used to love and now just dread.  I started cooking Thanksgiving dinners when I was 15 or so.   The first couple of years my mom lovingly guided me from the kitchen table, although she always did the baking, except for the pumpkin pie…mine was better than hers, but I hate to bake.   With each passing year, especially once I got married and I had china and silver and crystal, the meals and table settings got more elaborate.   Being the only child of an only child and my other parents’ siblings had died young, our table wasn’t surround with a lot of family, but we always found people who didn’t have anywhere else to go that day and they became our annual “thanksgiving family.”  Over the years, the thanksgiving family got to know each other and everyone looked forward to their annual catching up.  And each year, there would be new friends because a few of the old would have other plans…it was always exciting to me to see who would be around the tables. 

But what happens when life starts throwing some major curveballs?  The first came when I lost a child who every year would sing silly Thanksgiving songs after the meal.  He loved to eat, entertain and be hospitable and anytime we had cake,he said it was a party!  So “Turkey Feast” as we called it, was his kind of bliss.  The first Thanksgiving after we lost him, we decided to shake it up and do a brunch instead, but it didn’t really help and I still miss our traditional version of Thanksgiving.   The next year I was back to OUR old thanksgiving and again the year after, they were smaller  but I had no idea it would be my last big thanksgiving meal, and my last with my mom. 

Months after my mom died, who by then was basically my last living family member, we packed up and moved 1400 miles away where I anticipated scaled down holidays while dealing with some pretty profound grief.  While nothing compares to losing a child, losing your roots, the family that raised you and stabilized you has been paralyzing for me in many ways.  I don’t want it to be.  I want to be able to be bigger than it, glass half full, bright side, sunny disposition…I’ve always said I’m a realist with a lean towards the positive.  I’ve never allowed myself to be marked by and steeped in grief…I couldn’t live there, it’s just not me.  However, for someone that always went all out for the holidays, I miss that part of me and long to have it back some day.

Quite honestly, I never enjoyed having a small family, which is not only why we collected people over the years but also why I wanted to have a bunch of kids.  I excitedly anticipate the day they come for the holidays with significant others and kids in tow…I know a full house will give me a full heart!    But that’s years off…and we’ve moved states two more times since that 1400 mile move….so starting a collection of people hasn’t happened as easily as I would have liked.  This year, I tried…in fact, I contemplated even putting an ad somewhere online.  I know there are others like me, especially single parents whose kids will go to their ex’s house and they can’t be with their family for whatever reason.  My dream would be to have those people surrounding my table someday, a new “Thanksgiving Family.”  When my efforts of late were getting me nowhere, I realized a couple of things.

First, I started telling myself that I needed to be content with a thanksgiving for four…and to be happy I don’t even have to share part of the day with their dad.  I am unbelievably grateful for my kids…but honestly that’s something I feel every day.   So I started telling myself I need to be happy with “what is” versus what used to be, or what should be, or I wish would be. 

I began to tear those things apart and evaluating them this week.  I will never have those experiences again that I had the first 15-20 Thanksgivings I prepared.  Besides the most significant players having all died, the other players have married, had kids or grandkids and their lives have all changed too.  They have new places to go for dinner and I am genuinely happy for them.  Then I thought about my last two Thanksgivings where I live now…there have actually been three but I can’t recall the one before.  Two years ago, my ex husband and I had finalized our plans to divorce just two days before Thanksgiving and announced it to our world where we told everyone “we completed our marriage.”  We actually spent Thanksgiving separately….he went to one set of friends and the kids and I went to another.   But the kids complained we didn’t get to eat their favorites so we had a mini version that Sunday, where all five of us ate our last meal at a table together.  I know you’re thinking “No wonder you aren’t happy today!”   Honestly our marital relationship was over years before and so both of us felt some level of relief and it really was okay.  I just happen to be on the slightly sentimental side and for his final two weeks still living with us kept thinking “This is the last time….” Or “He won’t get to be a part of this next time…”.

Then last year I had been dating someone for a couple of months and it was characterized by too-serious- too-fast, but I was grateful to have SOMEONE extra at our table, even though by then he ate with us every day.  His kids were with their mom and so we ate in almost complete silence as he was sad they weren’t there and honestly, it was plain awkward.   So revisiting the last two years, I can find some sort of thankfulness that I don’t have to go back to either of those things! 

What do I wish?  Well, I’d be happy with a myriad of scenarios as long as there it included a host of people.  I know I can’t bring my family back, I know I can’t pretend to be a part of someone else’s.  I know I can’t snap my fingers and make it all the way I wanted it.  Basically I just want to be with more people and the day to feel special.  I will not scroll facebook today because it’s a constant reminder that it just feels like another day here at my address…only with food I make just once a year.  I will avoid the stores tomorrow because I see all of the herds of relative shopping while I shop alone.   I will try to get through the next couple of days not remembering that I am untethered when I long for that more than anything else.  Somehow, I will sit at my table with the beautiful faces of my children and not feel guilty that I couldn’t give them a “thanksgiving family”, but hopefully we can still be grateful when it’s not quite enough.