On Being a Woman

I sit at my wooden table every morning here, while A still sleeps + I get to think my gentlest thoughts in the early hours. In a moment of courage, I decided to risk letting you in on my heart. 
As of late, I have been pondering womanhood and the roles I am learning to slip on over my shoulders. Best friend. Encourager. Christ-lover. Little sister. Bridesmaid. Comrade. Aunt. They are all quite beautiful. I wrote a list of them in my journal. And at the very bottom, as my hand shook ever so slightly with anticipation, I wrote two that I want to wear. 
Mother + wife. 

I still have friends who are getting married. Getting engaged. Becoming pregnant. Raising children.
I thought it was only going to be a season, one blur of June to December, and then everything would be still again. I would have that clarity that I longed for in those months of blustery + romantic passions that consumed the majority of my friends and relations. It would be over as quickly as it began. And the pale, rose colored dress would hang in my window. The small felt baby shoes would be wrapped up and sent out. The diamond bracelet would be worn on occasion. The dried bouquets would be glanced at every so often. The tiny paintings and letters about those times would be tied with white ribbons and hidden away for the future.
It hasn't ended though.
It's been over a year since the first. I've come full circle, and I'm beginning to realize that this season isn't actually a season more than it is a new life.
Running through the forest together on a whim isn't an option anymore, because everyone is new now. Everyone is looking + discovering. I feel like they're all seeing each other for the first time and then deciding, why not, let's give it a go darling. 
That never happened with me; it hasn't happened with me. No one looked into my eyes and finally realized they aren't actually green. There was never any spark for me. I just sat there. And it sounds depressing when I say it like that, but the truth is, no one ever knocked at my door once they all became enraptured with each other.
I used to think I wouldn't be okay with that, being the odd one out. Loving abundantly without a response. I feared that so much only a few years ago. I dreaded even the thought of it. But now it's different.

People—women mostly—always talk + write about how they finally found solace or contentment in their state of being as single. How they finally loved Jesus enough not to care that no one holds them at night. That no man rubs their feet when they're cold. That he won't blow on her fingers too. That he's not there in the morning to kiss the back of her neck. That she doesn't have a swollen belly. That no one made vows to her. That she can't name children the names she always wanted to. That there's no one there to kiss her, hard on the mouth, everyday of her life.
Suddenly, one day, she was just okay with it. Her state of being. Suddenly, her loneliness became singleness. And everything was fine.
I hate that.

There are times when I actually sit there and think, well dang, what am I doing wrong? Because most often I really don't know. And there are days when I blame myself and wonder if my expectations really are too high. And there are moments when I just wallow in despair and decide that no one is going to love me + ever come knocking at my door. There are hours when I give up.

Every woman's heart is to be loved.

And you need to know, everything is not always fine for me.
Slowly my carpenter is revealing to me that discontentment is not a sin; it's just the wrong description of a right thing. Wanting to be married and cherished is not wrong. Christ is a lover, but He also made love here on earth. And as a woman, it is my natural state to crave affection and it is one of my purposes to desire to be cared for.
I used to pride myself in how satisfied I was with my state of being, how content. I would think, why is everyone always so worried? It's not a race. And then the trickle turned into a downpour and I was walking down the aisle not once, but twice and I never thought I'd see the end of white flowers. Suddenly, it mattered. Because all around me they were leaving. Everyone was dashing off together, hand in hand. And I was there, in the forest, with no one to run by my side. I tried to pull in those feelings, swallowed them back down my throat, hard + lumpy, biting back with a ferocity. I buried them. I made lists about the woman I wanted to—the woman I needed to—be. I learned languages. I read a hundred books. I painted a thousand pictures. I wrote stories. I baked better. I cooked more. I ran every morning. I laughed louder. I traveled further, miles + miles in my car. I sang to babies. I sewed tiny slippers. I pressed in to Jesus + fell in love with church. I spoke my mind more often. I was a bridesmaid, twice. I made new friends. I sent piles of letters. I began to memorize scripture. I climbed more mountains.
I did anything and everything except for one thing.
I refused to want to be in love.
The idea was always there though. Even when we decide to stop waiting, we make our entire lives about becoming better just in case.
You are not quite there yet, I told myself. Just a few more steps, a few more months, and then maybe you will be a good enough woman. Then maybe he will find you.
But he never came.
And so I made it a point to never want him even harder.

This last summer, my father + I built a box. It's a dark-stained wood, almost a deep cherry color. I sat on the edge of my bed after we finished it, tired and expectant, but also unsure of what exactly to put in it. The thought came to me quietly, and I almost doubled over when I first uncovered it in a pocket in my heart.
No, I think I maybe even said that out loud. No. Anything but that. 
But still it was there, calmly incessant, almost like a lullaby.
It's not a sin, He told me in the stillness of my wheat-colored bedroom on my white comforter. It's okay, I heard in my soul.
And I put the wooden box down and pressed my hands to my forehead. I was traumatized. I wanted it to be untrue. I wanted to un-hear the short conversation, to un-think the thought, to un-make the box.
But I couldn't. So I surrendered.

I wrote a letter to my husband in June of this year. It was a few pages long, slipped into a creamy white envelope and scrawled on with a nice black ink pen. I put it in that wooden box my father + I built, and then I slid the lid closed and I did not wince when it was done. I had written letters for him before, this future man, around the time when I was sixteen and starting to pine for things that would come. But I burned them all around the time when I was eighteen and decided not to wait anymore.
This was a new beginning.
And I want you to know, it has taken me years to come to terms with the idea that wanting to be married is okay, that impatience is not necessarily to be looked down upon, that dreaming isn't a sin.
My one purpose in life is not to get married. It is not to have children with small feet and perfect toes. My one purpose in life is not to hold someone's hand. It is not to laugh into his face and kiss in the dark. It is not to fall asleep on his shoulder. It is not to rub my daughters' backs and run my fingers through my son's hair. It is not to have a family. It is not to desperately want someone on a daily basis. It is not to have a love story. My one purpose in life is not marriage.
It is one of my purposes though.
Love was something I was designed for.
I accept that. I relish it. I adore it.

I am going to do amazing things. I plan on it. I mean, I am already doing some wondrous things. I embark on adventures every morning at our wooden table. I write love letters. I paint paintings. I discover new recipes. I dirty my hands. I make plans that have to do with literacy and people + children I've yet to meet. I craft stories. I pray. I learn. I shrug off the guilty years and pull on the new, fresh ones like an old sweater. I define myself. I study, hard + long. I worship the carpenter. I read old books. I speak other languages. I knead bread. I breathe. I live.
I wait.
I need to confess that to you. As a woman, I wait. Because I was born to love and make love and be loved. I wholly embrace my Savior and His calling for my life, and part of that embracing is this season that is perpetual and will probably never end. Part of that is transitioning into a time when friendships come with another, and you get to hold the babies. Part of that is accepting that it's not your turn and you don't get to know everything. Part of that is doing other things and being fearfully + wonderfully made. Part of that is wondrous.
Part of that is waiting.
Everything is better when you know that.

I am not left behind. I am not unwanted. I am not less than the other women who surround me. I'm not chosen yet though either. No one has knocked at my door. And I hate to be the heart-breaker + grey-er of the blue skies, but there's no guarantee that any man ever will. Marriage is not something we are owed; it's not a promise we deserve. It's true, I dream of strong hands and high-beamed ceilings and dark wood floors. It's also true though that I can make those things for myself.
Not the hands, but the rest I can do.

It is okay to want what God created. His design is something to be yearned after. But knowing that you can make it all yourself, knowing you are capable of building too, that's important. It makes being the odd one out a little bit easier. Loving with everything you are seems less of a struggle then.
I am not defined by my lack of a stronger form who would walk through life next to me.
I am a capable human being. Created by a gentle Savior. In love with a carpenter. Imaginative + sweet. I am strong and able to do all things, even move the mountains. I can make a way for myself. I can change things, make a difference. I can and will have high-beamed ceilings and dark wood floors. Still though, I wait.
The strong hands are what I wait for.
And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing to be ashamed of in dark-stained wooden boxes full of love letters to a man I haven't met yet. If anyone ever condemns you for something like that, then let me assure you, they have no right.
To just be a woman is to desire a protector and a partner.

I have important things to do right now. Some of them need to be done alone. That's not something I decided, it's just something I know. There are portions of your life that are meant to be spent with just your own two hands and your own one voice and your own. Certain things are meant to be created in a lonelier state of self.
And so I am in no rush, but I need him to be able to look at this + read it one day + to know that I was here, being patient and impatient and everything else beautiful.
I need him to know I wanted him before he ever got to me.

There is nothing wrong with having a heart.