I
met K for coffee the other day and what made me smile was how she tried to
"corrupt" me. You must find someone. Never mind marriage, forget it. Just look for someone to love, for companionship.
I love you, K, and know that you love me, but get thee behind me, satan.
Seeing as platonic relationships are not in vogue, I don't know why my friends bother to try changing my views when they know I am an orthodox Catholic. Chastity is my choice and not one that sits well with many men today so I am realistically living my life as a chaste, single woman. I may not have set out to be single but it is not as cursed a life as people seem to think. I am happy. I am productive. I am creative. I am fulfilled.
As I do not moralize when I am with friends who live less than exemplary lives, I wish they would return the favour and stop preaching to me. Yes, I believe that lust, masturbation, fornication and adultery are serious sins, but more than that, I believe that they pervert love and lead to an unhealthy obsession with sex and to sexual addictions. I prefer to remain free of addiction for I know what it is like to be held prisoner to it.
I also choose to experience love the way God created love to be experienced. Christopher West summed it up in four words: Free, Total, Faithful and Fruitful. Only a man who loves me for who I am and is willing to die for me will suit. Thus, Jesus Christ is the man for me. His act of love over 2,000 years ago speaks volumes to me even today and so I have opted to make Him a very real presence in my life.
I am not interested in using but in giving when it comes to relationships. I refuse to use a man, woman or thing to stave off loneliness for I know that loneliness in itself is not a bad thing and is part of the human condition. Loneliness drives me to seek union with God and in seeking union with God, I find myself connecting with others in loving and life-giving ways that fulfil me and give me joy. It does take time and constant effort to get it right, to move out of the depressed inertia loneliness often spawns, but when I succeed, something inside changes. I am purer, stronger.
This is the true gift of Christianity, of my Catholic faith, the deep understanding of what I was created for and how I should live my life: to serve with love. In saying yes to the personal and unique mission God has entrusted me, I am renewed and made whole time and again. Making God my first priority has made me His. It's a grace that is more than sufficient and like loneliness, you have to experience it for yourself, if not, you will not get it. All I can do is encourage you to try Gospel living. Seek to die to self.
Even if loneliness remains the gnawing physical pain Shireen Dadkhah describes in her article 10 heartbreaking struggles single people never talk about*, it is lessened and made bearable for self-giving love cleanses the soul. Being good to others makes one’s entire being light up and hum with quiet joy.
As the song goes, you're nobody till somebody loves you...so find yourself somebody to love. Yes, even if nobody loves you, you can choose to love someone. I am not talking about celebrity adulation or stalker obsessive kind of love here, people. Love your difficult parent or someone who needs a helping hand. This has surprising rewards.
It is a myth that couples live idyllic lives. Even married folks get lonely, ask them. If they are truly honest, they will tell you they sometimes wish they were single again for they are weighed down with more responsibilities and yet, still feel achingly unfulfilled occasionally.
Some even choose to remain lonely in a relationship than be single for the word single conjures up horrors for them. Pardon my French but that's absolute baloney the world would have you think is true, that single people are lonelier people. I have seen friends remain in relationship hell because they cannot handle the thought of going solo until they are forced to do so and what they all find is uncoupling is actually liberating. Life goes on, better than before, after the dust settles.
When I asked my friend N last Sunday how she celebrated her recent birthday, she pointed at her two young children: it was either looking after her, or him. She didn't get time off from being a mummy. Certainly the path ahead may be clearer for married people but it isn't any easier (more circumscribed if anything). Forget about the grass being greener. It is neither on either side. We all have our highs and lows whether we are part of a couple or single.
Sure, eating alone sucks, the universe operates in pairs, there is no one to hug you when you need one, cooking for one is a pain and the deafening silence of being home alone can be frightening, but bear in mind that happiness is not something we can find, like a lost earring or a new restaurant. Neither is it something we can pray for, hoping that God will grant it in an instant.
I did not choose to be single, but I can surely choose to work with it and be at peace with it. I know it’s clichéd but keep looking for the half-full glass and then give thanks for whatever you find in the glass. Or perhaps it is empty because you have already tasted the living water** but don't quite know it yet.
* You can read Shireen Dadkhah’s article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/shireen-dadkhah/2014/11/10-absolutely-heartbreaking-struggles-single-people-never-talk-about/
** Like the woman at the well when she encountered Jesus.
I love you, K, and know that you love me, but get thee behind me, satan.
Seeing as platonic relationships are not in vogue, I don't know why my friends bother to try changing my views when they know I am an orthodox Catholic. Chastity is my choice and not one that sits well with many men today so I am realistically living my life as a chaste, single woman. I may not have set out to be single but it is not as cursed a life as people seem to think. I am happy. I am productive. I am creative. I am fulfilled.
As I do not moralize when I am with friends who live less than exemplary lives, I wish they would return the favour and stop preaching to me. Yes, I believe that lust, masturbation, fornication and adultery are serious sins, but more than that, I believe that they pervert love and lead to an unhealthy obsession with sex and to sexual addictions. I prefer to remain free of addiction for I know what it is like to be held prisoner to it.
I also choose to experience love the way God created love to be experienced. Christopher West summed it up in four words: Free, Total, Faithful and Fruitful. Only a man who loves me for who I am and is willing to die for me will suit. Thus, Jesus Christ is the man for me. His act of love over 2,000 years ago speaks volumes to me even today and so I have opted to make Him a very real presence in my life.
I am not interested in using but in giving when it comes to relationships. I refuse to use a man, woman or thing to stave off loneliness for I know that loneliness in itself is not a bad thing and is part of the human condition. Loneliness drives me to seek union with God and in seeking union with God, I find myself connecting with others in loving and life-giving ways that fulfil me and give me joy. It does take time and constant effort to get it right, to move out of the depressed inertia loneliness often spawns, but when I succeed, something inside changes. I am purer, stronger.
This is the true gift of Christianity, of my Catholic faith, the deep understanding of what I was created for and how I should live my life: to serve with love. In saying yes to the personal and unique mission God has entrusted me, I am renewed and made whole time and again. Making God my first priority has made me His. It's a grace that is more than sufficient and like loneliness, you have to experience it for yourself, if not, you will not get it. All I can do is encourage you to try Gospel living. Seek to die to self.
Even if loneliness remains the gnawing physical pain Shireen Dadkhah describes in her article 10 heartbreaking struggles single people never talk about*, it is lessened and made bearable for self-giving love cleanses the soul. Being good to others makes one’s entire being light up and hum with quiet joy.
As the song goes, you're nobody till somebody loves you...so find yourself somebody to love. Yes, even if nobody loves you, you can choose to love someone. I am not talking about celebrity adulation or stalker obsessive kind of love here, people. Love your difficult parent or someone who needs a helping hand. This has surprising rewards.
It is a myth that couples live idyllic lives. Even married folks get lonely, ask them. If they are truly honest, they will tell you they sometimes wish they were single again for they are weighed down with more responsibilities and yet, still feel achingly unfulfilled occasionally.
Some even choose to remain lonely in a relationship than be single for the word single conjures up horrors for them. Pardon my French but that's absolute baloney the world would have you think is true, that single people are lonelier people. I have seen friends remain in relationship hell because they cannot handle the thought of going solo until they are forced to do so and what they all find is uncoupling is actually liberating. Life goes on, better than before, after the dust settles.
When I asked my friend N last Sunday how she celebrated her recent birthday, she pointed at her two young children: it was either looking after her, or him. She didn't get time off from being a mummy. Certainly the path ahead may be clearer for married people but it isn't any easier (more circumscribed if anything). Forget about the grass being greener. It is neither on either side. We all have our highs and lows whether we are part of a couple or single.
Sure, eating alone sucks, the universe operates in pairs, there is no one to hug you when you need one, cooking for one is a pain and the deafening silence of being home alone can be frightening, but bear in mind that happiness is not something we can find, like a lost earring or a new restaurant. Neither is it something we can pray for, hoping that God will grant it in an instant.
Likewise,
loneliness is not something we can dissipate by railing at God or envying
others. Neither can we eradicate it with one night stands, retail therapy or
partying one’s brains out. That’s just treating the symptoms, disastrously, I might add, and it only breeds narcissism of the worst order.
While some of what Shireen Dadkhah writes resonates with me, perhaps because I am older than Shireen, having eaten more salt than she has rice as Grandma would say, I can declare being single doesn’t have to be one constant heartache, one eternal sorrow, even if it can be a colossal struggle at times.
Life is so much more than one’s state of life. Love comes in more ways than what is portrayed in the movies as the ultimate prize: boy meets girl, they fall in love and they live happily ever after. Single people are called to experience love in more ways than married people, to really get creative. The possibilities are infinite. Explore them. Quit being lazy or self-indulgent. Think outside of the box of social convention. Grow into your passions. Actualize the desires God places in your heart. Most of all, stop buying into the idea that a single person is a sad lesser being, incomplete and flawed. Live well in spite of your limitations. It is possible to be single and living in joyous solitude.
While some of what Shireen Dadkhah writes resonates with me, perhaps because I am older than Shireen, having eaten more salt than she has rice as Grandma would say, I can declare being single doesn’t have to be one constant heartache, one eternal sorrow, even if it can be a colossal struggle at times.
Life is so much more than one’s state of life. Love comes in more ways than what is portrayed in the movies as the ultimate prize: boy meets girl, they fall in love and they live happily ever after. Single people are called to experience love in more ways than married people, to really get creative. The possibilities are infinite. Explore them. Quit being lazy or self-indulgent. Think outside of the box of social convention. Grow into your passions. Actualize the desires God places in your heart. Most of all, stop buying into the idea that a single person is a sad lesser being, incomplete and flawed. Live well in spite of your limitations. It is possible to be single and living in joyous solitude.
I did not choose to be single, but I can surely choose to work with it and be at peace with it. I know it’s clichéd but keep looking for the half-full glass and then give thanks for whatever you find in the glass. Or perhaps it is empty because you have already tasted the living water** but don't quite know it yet.
* You can read Shireen Dadkhah’s article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/shireen-dadkhah/2014/11/10-absolutely-heartbreaking-struggles-single-people-never-talk-about/
** Like the woman at the well when she encountered Jesus.
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