“I’m writing a blog about the single life,” I told my colleague Mark.
“Hope it’s a short-lived blog!” he laughed.
Took the words right out of my mouth, Mark did.
Anyway, ahem, a little about me:
I am 26.
I teach high school theology. Most days it doesn’t seem like “work.”
I have never become a morning person as I’d hoped.
I own a blue 1957 Smith Corona electric typewriter.
At World Youth Day in Toronto I met eyes with Blessed John Paul II.
I am single. I am writing a blog about it.
I struggled to name the blog and asked friends for suggestions. This usually ended in a mess of laughter. People took the question seriously for about ten seconds and then threw out titles that played upon stereotypes of single women:
Are You My Husband?
Me, Myself and Chocolate
It’s Sweatpants Again
The Coffee Shop Prowler
Lady in Waiting
Solitary Confinement
Stop Asking Me if I’ve Met Someone
I Hate Valentine’s Day
Some of these failed titles are funny because they’re true. It’s liberating to admit that, and to laugh at oneself.
And yet, some evenings after dinner and dishes, a smoldering emptiness creeps between my shoulders. I feel this same emptiness when my Facebook feed updates with friends’ wedding or ordination photos, or when I remember that friends my age have children older than my longest relationship.
In the midst of others’ emerging vocations, I sometimes feel stunted, stuck, and made to wait like the child I no longer think I am.
But I’m not miserable. Part of the mystery of this time is just how wonderful life can be while still seeming incomplete. How can life be both full of satisfaction and still so full of expectation?
There is a tension between happily pouring myself into work and friendships while desiring to give a greater gift of self. There’s a tension between being consecrated to Christ in baptism and receiving Him in the Eucharist every Sunday, yet awaiting the bridegroom.
So this blog isn’t some extended personal ad, or an online pity party, or fodder for amateur song lyrics about that guy that didn’t work out. It’s not a deluded insistence that the feelings of loneliness and confusion don’t exist and anyway, ‘boys are stupid.’
This blog is an exploration into what time as a single person is for, a kind of evolving user’s manual for how exactly one keeps a lamp burning. This blog is about Christ working on me. “See, I am doing something new!”[1] He always says to me, and I’m never quite sure what the crafty Guy is up to.
I hope to write as one passing through, this just one stop of many along our journey to the Wedding Feast. Ultimately I hope the message resonates with those at every stage of life.
I dedicate “See Jane Single” to the Bridegroom. May God bless my words and use them as an instrument to cheer, console and call.
[1] Isaiah 43:19
