Single Working Womens Week – SWWAN

Got a note from a single friend quoting her single friend who worried about ever having to be too close to a significant other again. Facing issues of abandonment, abuse, etc. that had come up in previous relationships.

Yeah, I used to feel  that way so I know what it feels like. But not for years now. I was in dead earnest when I said after my first brush with a serious health challenge that if God wants me to have one, he’ll put the guy right here in front of me ‘cuz I ain’t goin’ lookin’ no more. If I even think about it, I mostly wonder whether I could even do it anymore–compromise and so on all the time. Would I not just love the person, but submerge myself into his life and lose “me” again? I’d like to think not. but who knows.

That’s one little-discussed benefit of remaining single: we don’t have to live out those thorny issues that unfailingly arise in romantic relationships. We are able to conserve that energy for growing our spirits and for gifting the world with the products of our creativity. Blessed is the woman who can maintain her own personhood while sustaining a relationship and also realize her gifts and talents for the good of the world. She’s a woman who is totally centered and whose significant other not only respects and admires her but is also centered in his own spirit.

My life is full to overflowing—with beauty, beloved people, and music and art. I crave and appreciate being in my own space and in complete charge of my own time. In fact,  sometimes I use that as a gauge of whether I want to get close to a new friend. I love my solitude, and if I find myself feeling like I have to explain/defend myself about it, that ‘s not for me.

Took a day off work yesterday. Worked on my cookbook. No title yet, but it’s probably going to have single working women somewhere in the title or subtitle! It’s coming along–and as it does, I get scared that I’ll never finish. A book is such a long project. I’ve always shied away from doing something that long. Always worried that I lacked the discipline needed to stick with it for the long haul. And where will all that material come from!? Well, we will see. I’m finding that if I actually sit down and don’t let anything distract me, the ideas do come.

Maybe I’ll take another day off today. Oh, yeah, I’ve got to add our family recipe for chocolate chip cookies…I remember when I first made my mother’s recipe. She used to use Crisco, and I used butter instead. OMG,  I was transported by the vastly richer flavor. And it made eating the raw cookie dough—does everyone in the world do that like we do?—even more appealing.