It's a Little Strange

I wrote this blog on MySpace (yes I have a MySpace- eye roll away. It's a great place to find bands) a while ago and I was in a particularly sober mood that day - the universe and realities were all pressing down pretty hard then, and I've strangely found myself in the same space for the last week or so. I suppose the reds come around every 4 months. Anywho - I think its a good piece of writing and its pretty reflectionary of tonight for me so I'm going to encore it.

Disfruta:
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It's a little strange but today for some reason, I am feeling very unmarried. Now don't get me wrong – this isn't a "why am I not married??!!" whinny blog. I very rarely feel like this, much less openly talk about it. Underneath whatever kind of emotional precipitation is brewing, raging, or clearing- the Liz Landscape is a very happy one. I have a long, meaty and beloved gratitude list that is categorized, color coded, by-lined and bulleted. I just, for some strange reason, really feel like writing about this right now.

There is so much emotional fore, mid, and background that goes into a conversation like this. Singleatude in Mormon World is cleverly disguised as benign but its really a very difficult state. You're a secondary citizen in the social spectrum of things. You're not any less loved or valid, but there is a social-construct that we all have to deal with that has been built up on the scaffolding of The Gospel and you just don't get to go upstairs or are truly "normal" unless you have a ring on your finger. Every 30 year old unclad left hand is scrutinized in someway and the usual and sometimes reluctant question that pops up is somewhere along the lines of "what's wrong?" Even if it's dismissed right away, never articulated or answered – its still there. And even though you know you are perfectly amicable and hygienic and a fabulous cook - you still ask it of yourself too.

That, however, is not what I really want to speak to right now -

I really don't like the term "single" anyway - its synonyms are just obtuse: solitary, singular, solo, lone, particular. It's hardly an empowering title, much less identity. It gives you this strange subconscious license to be irresponsible and apathetic to other people and ironically this usually goes in tandem with a string of guilt for being that way, and for not being married yet...

But being unmarried is different I think. That's how I feel today – like for the first time I'm really missing something. Like when you get flowers and they sit pretty for a few sweet days and their smell greets you when you get home. But after they expire and you have to throw them out and the next week you kind of sit and think – It would be nice to have some flowers again.

I've thought about what's harrowing up all of this and I've done some emotional inventorying to see if something else is bothering me and it's just manifesting itself in singletonness. Like when something is askew the solution to all problems is just over the next life step – "If I were married I wouldn't have to deal with taking the trash out all the freaking time" And when you are married it's when you buy your house. And when you buy your house it's when the house is paid for etc….

I think I figured it out. There are a few people, very close to me, that have done this "single thing" with me. They've been my wingmen for years and years. And blindsidingly, I felt in my heart today that they are getting closer and closer to marriage and that I needed to prepare.

This made me sit up a bit and 20 minutes later I found myself crying. I don't cry very often either - not out of sadness that is. Then I started laughing in confusion at myself. I felt silly for being selfish and mourning the loss of them. Because no matter what you think, things shift when someone marries – you swear things won't change, but they do. And they should. I would expect nothing else from them. But their potentially marriedness pushes my unmarriedness smack in the spotlight and wishing for some flowers. Its simplistically cyclical and pretty much scares the hell out of me. I don't know what I am going to do without them. I'm so terrified of a life of "other" – even among people that love and adore me – the people I feel the safest with.

Then there is this creeping annoyingly true feeling in my gut – that if we were all on the marriage path together that I wouldn't feel this way at all. I wouldn't feel as separated from them and - everything else really. Solitary, singular, solo, lone, particular. I suppose we all have to figure out how to fend for ourselves – even in the complex emotional realms of the universe.

There isn't a quick remedy – there isn't a flavor or Bert and Rocky's that can rectify or a pair of heals that can do much but pacify. It's a process and I welcome and accept all of that. I truly do – But I think I will sit and see the missing flowers a little more lately.

Aristotle said that "the unexamined life isn't worth living" so I'm doing my best and Heber C. Kimball said "Quit your whining and get the Spirit of the Lord – every one of you" and I'm giving that my best too – it'll be fine. But tonight – this is how I feel.

There you go -

I know - it all really is a little strange.