Wholeness is lilies

My face was red, I could feel it. The pink, insistent blush creeping up my throat and onto my cheeks, deepening constantly. And I actually threw up my hands in desperation. I don't get it, I whispered to the carpenter under my breath and I pressed my forehead against the wooden table. Am I supposed to get it? Because I really don't, I told Him. I just really don't get it.
I was her. The small woman at her kitchen table two nights ago, reading. I was reading blog posts and magazine articles and listening to sermons about singleness late into the night when suddenly I felt tears pressing on the corners of my eyes and the blush blossoming across my face. They were wonderful. Truly, everything I read and listened to was wonderful.
But they were too much.

I am so tired of everyone telling me what I should or shouldn't feel.

You want to know the truth?
There are mornings when I wake up and I feel sad. I feel like a failure. I feel like no one picked me and it's already too late. I feel defeated. There are mornings, there are mornings friends, when I lay under my warm sheets and pull them up over my face and I have to actually try not to sob.
There are mornings when I think it isn't fair.
I have those. I live through them. Wrap them up tightly and hide them in the corners of my soul, the saddest places I don't dare show you often enough. The truth is, this isn't easy. Nothing anyone can say or write or tell you or preach will make it any easier. You're going to wake up and not want to get out of bed. You're going to get mad. You're going to feel left behind. Unwanted. Betrayed. Overlooked. Sad. Stupid. Lost. Wrong.
Not good enough.
I know, because I feel all those things too.

It is hard to be patient for something that you may never get to have.
We're not owed love, which is why it is such a struggle not to have that someone. It's not a sure thing, that you'll go outside and see that special one and accidentally brush fingers or meet in the coffee shop and have that moment we all long for. There's no guarantee. That's what's so devastating about the whole thing. We never actually know if we'll meet him until we meet him.

I don't want to be ruled by my singleness. I don't want it to be something bad, for it to grow ugly and spill over into unappealing, unattractive desperation. I don't want to waste time pining.
But I don't want to ignore my desires either.

It has come to my attention that what I most sincerely want is to be cherished. I confessed it the other morning, to my little sister. I told her the truth. I'm done with all this, I wrote to her. I'm done with being a college student and learning things and being alone. I'm tired of it. I want to be married. I want to build the house of my dreams. I want children. I want a white room with a dark-stained desk to paint and write my fairytales on. I want a family. I didn't write my last thought.
I want to be loved.
But I'm writing it now.
Because it's the truth, and I don't want to lie about it or pretend I never think it or be afraid of it. I am admitting it. I want to be loved. Unabashedly, unashamedly, with a fervency. I want to be adored.
There's nothing wrong with that. I remind myself of that daily. It's okay to want to be loved. And while I assure you, let me also caution you. Do not spend your days wasting away with a selfish yearning. Do not become consumed with a want such as that, no matter how beautiful it is. Because you are a being already. A capable, gorgeous human, able to do great things. And it so important that you recognize that. Once you do, you will find yourself a braver soul, you will dare to do the things you can barely imagine, and you will be the better for it.

The other day, I wrote my bucket list into a small black moleskine. It had been penned onto a white paper that was dirty and folded and put into my wallet. There are lots of little things I plan on doing. There are also some big ones. After my conversation with Chelsea a few weeks ago and rewriting my list, I realized that I've been holding back. I've been waiting to do certain just so I can be holding someone's hand while I do them. I've denied myself dreams and pleasures because I was waiting.
And yes, maybe being with the someone you love does make things sweeter. Maybe there are certain special adventures that we wait to go on until we've found the one. Maybe it's okay to have the one or two things you know you need to do while you have a lover because without them, it just wouldn't be the same.
But there are things, there are things we all sacrifice because we're still a singular human. Because we're alone. Because we're afraid.
There are things we don't do because we expect them of "him."

I say to heck with all of that.

I buy myself flowers. Tulips. Daisies. Dahlias. Roses. Sunflowers. Orchids. I bought myself lilies only this morning. I walked into Trader Joe's with plans to buy nothing, and I came out into the softly falling snow with a bouquet of pink lilies just about to bloom. I love flowers. If flowers are a love language, they're definitely one of mine. I might marry someone just because he comes to my door with bunches and handfuls of irises or peonies. I would seriously consider it, that is how much I love flowers.
I feel like I owe them to myself.
A while ago, I just got over it. I stopped believing that flowers are something someone else is supposed to give you. And now I buy them. I don't want to steal pleasures from myself just because I'm not married or engaged or have a boyfriend. That's stupid. It's silly, really. Just because you're waiting for someone to come along and sweep you off your feet doesn't mean you're required to stand in your doorway on the constant lookout. You can go places. You can do things.
Who wants a boring woman anyway?
I want to be a wonderful woman when I meet him. Someone who has done beautiful things. Made beautiful things. Seen beautiful things. I want to be smart. Accomplished. Well-read. I want to be able to say, I can make a good wife. I can be a good mother. I want to be able to be the best friend I am capable of being. I want to know more chords on the ukulele. I want to stack another pavlova. I want to watch a show on Broadway.
I want to wait for the right man, but I don't want to wait to live.

There are so many beautiful things we can be aside from wife and mother. I mean, those are gorgeous, but ladies, don't sell yourself short. I know it's difficult. I have the mornings too, remember? But I want to be so much more too. I want to be the best aunt ever. I want to write small stories and paint watercolors about bears. I want to sew tiny pom-poms on the toes of knitted slippers. I want to clutch a sleeping child that isn't mine to my chest and feel her breathe softly into my shoulder. I want to be a best friend. I want to send piles of letters and stacks of parcels full of flowers and tea and branches and glitter. I want to drive the miles just for the few days of togetherness. I want to be a bridesmaid or a maid of honor again. I want to carry bouquets and wear long dresses and collapse at a table late at night with a cup of coffee and an hundred emotions once it's all over. I want to be an adventurer. A savior. A sweetheart. I want to care for orphans and people who are lonely. I want to be a traveler. A baker. A cook. I want to speak more languages. I want to write a book. I want to throw parties. I want to spend every holiday with my family. I want to knit a sweater. I want be an artist. A dreamer. An author. A painter.
Don't suffer yourself to be only one thing just because no one loves you yet.
Please don't do that.

...

I keep writing these thoughts down. There all scattered and some of them still don't make sense, but people read them. Women read them and sometimes find them encouraging. Girls read them and thank me for them. So I feel like I need to take a moment, I need to breathe, and then I need to actually sit down and express them in a more articulate manner. I don't want to be a single woman forever, but I am learning so many lovely things while I am here and now, and I want to share them with you all. I want this sisterhood, this camaraderie, this time of fellowship and relating in our state of being to be more important. I don't want this to be just a learning curve. I don't want to wing it, and I don't want you to either. 

This is important. 

Being able to consider yourself a single woman, rather than a single woman unloved is a feat. It shouldn't be as a big a deal as we make it though. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's scary. But honestly, while it does call for impatience sometimes and it is hard not to be sad other times, it is just something you are.
Not who you are.
We need to stop forgetting that.