When I was in my late 20’s singleness hit a point where it felt hard. I had started to watch my friends marry and have kids. I saw them start a life that I wanted and didn’t have. I remember visiting friends from college and on the flight back home I felt a sense of grief. I couldn’t relate to them anymore. When we were in school together we were going through the same things and now we weren’t. They were figuring out marriage and taking care of babies and I was trying to figure out what games to play with my junior high small group girls.
But something I didn’t know then that I know now is that I was making some parts of my singleness harder. The way I was looking at everything was making it worse, but I didn’t know how to look at it any other way.
So today I want to share with you exactly what I was doing that made it worse, so you can stop doing these things and maybe learn from my mistakes.
I was fighting with reality. Subtle thoughts like “It shouldn’t be this way,” or “How am I still single” made me really push against the way my life was. I was single. There was no other way to look at it. Facts. No one was pursuing me, taking me out on dates, or trying to get to know me. I had no one on the horizon and even my default guy was getting married. But believing I shouldn’t be single or that I should be married, only made my current factual situation worse. See when we fight what is, we have a hard time accepting what is. I was putting so much energy into thinking I shouldn’t be alone, or that someone should be pursuing me that it was hard for me to just say, yes, I am single. Not only was it hard for me to accept but it was hard for me to open up to it and allow it to be that way. When in reality I could have understood that I was single and it was okay. I am single and therefore thinking I should be married just makes me critical towards myself. It makes me critical to my reality. It makes it hard to enjoy it when I am judging it so harshly. But understanding that was where I was at, and nothing had gone wrong. I was actually supposed to be single. I was supposed to not have anyone pursuing me and I was actually always going to celebrate my birthdays and holidays without a significant other. Nothing had gone wrong, nothing was supposed to be any different than it was. And my favorite thought is all circumstances are for God’s glory and my good. So me being single at age 28, 29, and 30 was all for good. Accepting it allowed me to look at it totally different than I did. Dropping the fight and thinking I am single and this is exactly how it’s supposed to be will allow you to feel differently about your singleness. You will stop wasting energy fighting against it. You can accept it and then can start using your energy to decide what you want your season of singleness to be like. Whenever I drop the fight I am able to enjoy it so much more, that might be the case for you too.
I began to worry that something was wrong with me. When marriage and dating seemed to be happening so easily for others it was easy for me to believe that I wasn’t lovable or worthy of dating. In high school and college, I didn’t really ever have boyfriends. I had a ton of really good guy friends, who enjoyed spending time with me and talking to me all about the girls they liked. But they never picked me. They liked hanging out with me. They liked confiding in me. They liked calling me when they needed something, but they never just wanted me. And they never wanted me in a romantic way for sure. So, I didn’t really know how to make sense of all that. I started believing I wasn’t the marrying type, or the dating type. And therefore something must be wrong with me. I started to see all of my flaws. I started picking myself apart. I was too loud, overweight, picky, not attractive, and not smart enough. Or my all time favorite, maybe I didn’t know how to send out the vibes that I was interested, but I mean come on I am always available to you whenever you want to hang with me, can it be more obvious? Which thinking that something was wrong with me kept me constantly trying to better myself. Lose the weight, change my personality, become what I thought he wanted, force the DTR (define the relationship) conversation so I could see if he liked me or own that I liked him. But here is the truth, there was nothing wrong with me. I am 100% lovable just the way I am. The weight I am, the personality I am. His ability to like me was on him. I did not need to change for anyone. So if you are starting to creep into this belief that something is wrong with you, repeat after me: I am 100% lovable just as I am. You do not need to change to find love. You do not need a different personality to find love. God made you exactly the way you are and you are more lovable than ever. Knowing this and believing this will allow you to start loving you right where you are. Nothing is wrong with you my friend.
I wanted to feel seen and known and was looking for a man or others to do that for me. I struggled to understand myself. I struggled to pay attention to what was going on with me. I was so busy doing things to avoid myself. I was the queen of pouring into, serving, encouraging, and taking care of others, but I was forgetting to do that for myself. I was kind of disappointed in myself for things I wish were different and was giving myself the cold shoulder until I changed. I was my own biggest critic, so no wonder I didn’t like spending time with myself, who hangs out with their haters? But not seeing myself or knowing myself created a huge disconnect. I was longing to be seen and known and when it wasn’t happening I made it worse by hoping and potentially begging others to see me and know me. I was continually disappointed in others because they weren’t doing it right. They never really cared or paid attention in the way I wanted. I would make someone cookies and they wouldn’t say anything and my feelings would get hurt. I would bend over backwards to help someone and they wouldn’t even say thanks. I was struggling, and people were letting me down. If this is you, realize that you can see yourself. You can know yourself. My favorite way to do that is by actually carving out intentional time with me the way I would with a friend. I love to grab coffee with a friend and say, “Okay,tell me everything, what is going on with you?” So, now I do that for myself. I sit down and unload all of my thoughts. I see those thoughts. I appreciate those thoughts. I pay attention to what is there. I notice what is making me sad, or disappointed. I see what is causing me trouble or I am having a hard time making sense of. I just look at me and my thoughts and say I am here for it. I can handle all of you. I love all of you, and I want all of you. Nothing needs to change. Nothing needs fixed. I then feel seen, known, and even accepted. See God is already doing this. He knows our every thought, but if we are not careful we don’t take the time to see ourself. We push that responsibility on others and we make life harder for ourself. You don’t have to do that.
I started playing the comparison game. So once I was convinced that something was wrong with me, my only play was to compare. Was I better than her? Could I sing better, or lead better, or do my hair better? My brain couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, so then I had to look around to try and figure it out. So, new guy shows up at church in our Sunday school class and I begin to play who will he pick? I don’t even think I wanted him to pick me, but still I spent energy measuring myself up to the other women around me. Or it didn’t even matter if a guy was involved I felt the need to constantly pick apart the other women around me because they were my competition. We were in desperate times. I mean survival of the fittest is real when it comes to how many single men there are in my town and how many single women there are. You start doing the math and your odds are slim. You are forced to compete. But that only kept me from the community that I was really longing for. I wanted to have friendships but those were hard because it felt like you always had to stake your claim. So that is where I made it harder. I not only was single but I was also alone. I created this narrative that no one liked me, but really I was thinking horrible thoughts about them and wasn’t choosing to like them. I could have believed there was plenty to go around. I could have believed they were in fact not my competition. I could have championed the single women around me and been their biggest fans. And you can too. You can begin to see these women as an opportunity to love and grow together. They are not your competition. They are not your measuring stick. They are 100% lovable just the way they are. You do not need to be like them or not like them. You are you and they are them. Your ability to love them just the way they are is the work you get to do. If you long for community in your singleness then believing you can connect and not compete with other single women is key.
I focused on the hard stuff. Singleness was tough, but I believed it was harder than anything else. Marriage, kids, all of it easier. I could only see all that wasn’t. I didn’t have anyone to do holidays or celebrations with. I was continually the odd man out. I had to make every decision by myself. I was the only one making money. I was the only one taking care of me. I didn’t have a place at church. They only wanted me to serve, no one was serving me. I was the babysitter, dog sitter, house sitter, because I didn’t have any of that myself. Cooking for one, is annoying. When I was sick, I had to take care of me. I felt like I was missing out on traditions, vacations, and even normalcy. I felt like there was a world of couples and I was outside of that whole sphere. But that only created this narrative that my life was hard. I didn’t focus on all that was good. I couldn’t see the 50% positive that was unique to singleness. I didn’t ever think that going to the bathroom by yourself was a thing of the past when you have kids, or that you are only cleaning up after yourself when you are single and when you are married you clean up for two. I dreamed of what life would be like when he fixed dinner, but I didn’t realize that there would be two opinions of how to make something or even what to make. Can I just say there is a right way to load the dishwasher and a wrong way. But there was a sweetness about singleness that I quite honestly missed out on because I failed to focus on it. There is so much goodness in singleness but it can be hard to see it when you are only focusing on the hard. So today I want you to know that there is a 50% positive and 50% negative to this season of singleness and understanding both parts of it can make this season easier, and better. There will be 50% negative and 50% positive when you are married, and when you have kids. So understanding how to focus your mind on both parts now can be helpful to your next seasons as well.
So there you have it. Five ways that I unknowingly made my singleness even harder on myself. If you can even take one thing away with you I know it will make this season a little easier.
And if you are reading this before August 9th jump into the 5 day challenge that is happening the 9th-13th where I am teaching you all about how to move from surviving to thriving as a single. We will address so many things that single women who love Jesus deal with.
I would love to have you join.
Angie
