Leigh Kramer

My Messy, Beautiful Single Life (Plus a Giveaway)

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth—
it’s she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration.

                 -Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours, I, 17

About two years ago, Rilke's words became my guide. I am grateful for my life, so grateful, but I am ever aware of the ill-matched threads and trying to make sense of how they fit.

Relative after relative used to tell me I'd be beating the boys away with a stick once I got to college. I hoped they were right because I hungered for a boyfriend like nothing else. Really, I hungered for validation and I was convinced a boyfriend would finally convince me of my worth.

College: marriage mecca. Surely some wonderful guy would deem me equally wonderful. Mom was 20 and Dad 23 when they married. I had no reason to believe it would work out differently.

Alas, while boys certainly were interested in me at my small liberal arts school, they were more interested in one-night stands than rings by spring. I settled for random make-out sessions and the occasional date.

I left with a degree and without a serious boyfriend. Not how I envisioned it. I'd planned to meet my true love at college. We'd marry after graduation and enjoy a couple of years of newlywed bliss before starting our family. My whole life I believed it would be so.

Instead, I watched friends and cousins marry. Even if I was prettier, smarter, or less dysfunctional, I remained alone. Even though loved ones told me differently, I concluded my flaws were greater than my strengths. There had to be some reason I remained single. I felt I had failed myself, my family, and even my church.

No one ever told me it was bad to be single. But no one said it was a valid option either.

My parents never pressured me to date or to settle, nor have my dearest friends. We are all befuddled by this turn of events. There have been very few guides on how to navigate singleness well, even fewer on Christian singleness.

As the years passed and Mr. Right continued to take his time, I developed my own theology of singleness. I read books, I talked with friends and family, and I prayed. I gained a better sense of self, along with healthier expectations of romantic relationships. I dated and navigated the complexities of male-female friendship.

Most importantly, I began to view singleness through another lens. It's not a punishment or an unwanted spiritual gift. I haven't failed. I wouldn't trade the past decade's opportunities for anything. I can honestly say I love my life.

And yet days come where I struggle to believe I'm enough, that this messy, beautiful single life is enough. There's still a part of me that believes a husband will prove I'm beautiful and worthy and grown-up. I've been teasing apart this faulty theology for at least a decade now- it pops up at the most interesting times and places- and I suppose this is why I keep writing about singleness. We may never marry but that doesn't mean we are "less than."

This next year boasts many personal changes. For all my independence, I'm tired of being the sole decision-maker. More like exhausted. As great as friends and family are as sounding boards, they can't make the decision for me, nor are their lives much affected by what I decide. I want someone else to have a vested interest in the outcome.

To paraphrase Rilke's words further in the poem, I'm stretching beyond what limits me. It is a risk to make these decisions, just as it's a risk to write publicly about being single. It's possible to want to marry, while also valuing my singleness.

I have to fight my impulse to overexplain and caveat each line because I'm well familiar with the assumptions about singleness and what people think I should do to "fix" it. Write about loneliness and people say I'm depressed. Write about a bad date and people ask if I've tried on-line dating. Write enough about singleness and someone will wonder if I have the spiritual gift of celibacy (which, hey, technically isn't a spiritual gift) or mention their experience of getting married at age 22. God has given me a passion for driving the loudmouths out of this particular hall.

I don't write for those people. I write for myself and for the other singles out there trying to weave the ill-matched threads of their lives. We all have our stories and different opinions on this stage of life, whether unmarried, divorced, widowed, or pseudo-single (my own term for those who are married or partnered but fucntion as single for various reasons). But my God, we are worthy in and of ourselves.

I am worthy.

No matter how much singles are marginalized, we still have a seat at the table. I've claimed mine. I'll save you a seat.

 

Linking up with the Messy, Beautiful Warrior Project — To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE! And to learn about the New York Times Bestselling Memoir Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life, just released in paperback, CLICK HERE!

(Head here for my brief review of Carry On, Warrior and a picture of me with Glennon.)

 

The Giveaway:

Momastery is graciously giving away one copy of Carry On, Warrior in paperback. Giveaway is open to US residents only and will run through this Sunday at 12 am CST. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to notification email before a new winner will be drawn. Please follow the directions in the Rafflecopter widget below.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Found giveaway

"Grace and holiness are both the first page and the last page of the story. We are always being found by God. And if we pay attention, we recognize God's good gifts. We gather them, look closely at them, and lift them to the golden sky." -Found, Micha Boyett

I waited for Micha Boyett's forthcoming spiritual memoir as anxiously as if it was my own. After finding her blog a few years ago, I recognized a kindred spirit and drew strength from her insights on the Benedictine way of life. I could not wait to see what she could do within the pages of a book.

When an advance copy arrived in my mailbox a couple of months ago, I anticipated diving in straightaway. Until I remembered: her book was also about motherhood.

I write a fair amount of singleness but haven't much touched on the other side of that. As much as I long to be a wife, I also long to be a mother. I thought I'd be a mother a few times over by now but that's not the way it's turned out. Most days I'm OK with this. 

Every once in a while, it turns out I'm momentarily very much not OK with it.  When those feelings well up, I give myself permission to grieve what I thought would be, what I fear will never be.

The day Found appeared in my mailbox was such a time. I don't remember now what brought those feelings to the surface. Griefbursts generally don't need a reason.

I read a few pages and then set it aside for the night. It was beautifully written but I was not in a place to accept her words. As much as I wished I could brush my feelings aside (This was my friend's book! The one I'd been waiting for!), I couldn't. I picked up one of the other several books I was in the middle of instead. Tomorrow would be a new day.

And it was. The next day I picked Found back up and settled in to its pages and rhythms, each section taking us further in to Benedictine prayer and liturgy. I could not stop reading, underlining, marveling over how much I related. Even though our lives look different. Even though Micha is, in many ways, living a life I'd like to lead myself. I had no idea how deeply it would resonate with me.

Because Found is not just about spirituality or motherhood or prayer. It is all these things but it is really one woman's journey of discovery. It is about how Micha grew to know God in a whole new way. Her openness and honesty about this process is a gift to us.

I am better for reading Found.

Truly. Certain lines and concepts hit so hard, I brought them up with my counselor. (Micha and I often commiserate over being Type Four. We have so many feeeeeeelings about it.)

But you're not a Four? Or a mother? Or a woman, for that matter? Micha's book is still for you. It's for all of us.

I highly recommend Found. Beautifully written, lovely, engaging, insightful. Truly a breath of fresh air. My soul exhaled when I read the final page. I can't wait to see what Micha does next.

 

The Giveaway:

Micha Boyett is graciously giving away one copy of Found to a reader. The giveaway is open to those in the US only and ends Friday at midnight. I'll be away at the Festival of Faith and Writing the next few days and will pick a winner once I'm back in town. The winner will have 48 hours to acknowledge their prize or I will pick a new winner.

To enter, follow the directions in Rafflecopter.

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Disclosure : Amazon Affiliate links included in this post.  If you click through to Amazon, any purchase you make supports this site.

Dating at Christmas

Two years ago a friend and I grabbed one of the last tables at 3rd and Lindsley. We ordered fried pickles and the hot salt perfectly melded with cool ranch dressing. A few feet away, Andrew Ripp belted out an a capella rendition of Joy to the World and the whole crowd clapped along. Christmas spirit descended in to our midst and there was no containing our joy.

Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors took the stage and it should have been enough but there my thoughts went wandering. All over a boy. Not much else would take my mind off of music. A few weeks prior, a much anticipated second date transpired. The kind of evening where you sense a third date will emerge. Only one hadn't. We'd fallen back in to the "will he or won't he" dance that permeated our interactions for months.

Sure, I became frustrated when it seemed the banter was going nowhere. But then he'd reference something obscure I'd told him and something told me to be patient.

 

I don't share much about my dating life but this story kept nagging me as the holidays drew nearer. Head on over to A Deeper Family to read the rest.

The Assumptions We Make (About Married People)

Yesterday I shared the response when I asked about the assumptions people make about singles and how to respond. Go ahead and read that post if you haven't yet and then come on back over.

Today it's time to hear from those who are married. Not being married myself, I had a few guesses about what people might say, thanks to countless observations and conversations with my married friends. Sure enough, those themes emerged. But like the response from singles, I was not expecting how much pain was still attached to these interactions.

Chances are these assumptions didn't happen the same day I asked about them. Yet calling those memories to mind, also called up the frustration and hurt. It's understandable and strengthens my resolve in furthering this discussion.

For whatever reason, many singles and marrieds are not communicating as well as they could be. As I mentioned yesterday, it's important to figure out ahead of time how to graciously respond when people make inaccurate assumptions about us. The only hope we have in correcting hurtful assumptions is by educating and then letting our lives speak for us.

Let's discuss the assumptions people make about married people and how we can respond.

The response on Storify:

 

 

I ask again: if you're married, what assumptions have people made about you? More importantly, how have you responded?

The Assumptions We Make (About Singles)

We've all been on the receiving end of assumptions, both positive and negative. If you think about it, we do a fair amount of unconscious assuming each day. We assume we will wake up in the morning when we go to sleep. We assume our friends will treat us well or treat us poorly, based on past treatment by them or others. We might assume positive intent when we interact with others. We assume we and our loved ones will not be in an accident, receive a diagnosis, and so on. We assume today will unfurl similarly to the day before it.

Our assumptions are rooted in how we were raised, what we were taught, what we've experienced. Sometimes they're rooted in ignorance. Sometimes they're due to miscommunication. They're not always wrong.

When we assume, we don't mean to hurt others. Not all assumptions do hurt others. Yet some certainly do.

Hurtful assumptions seem aimed at the core of who we are. When inaccurate assumptions are made about our marital status, sexual orientation, race, culture, career, socioeconomic class, religion, and so on, we hear someone say, "I know you better than you know yourself. I am right and you are wrong."

It can feel demeaning. Insulting. Belittling. We might feel shut down. We might want to retort with snark. If we're feeling gracious, we'll turn it into a teachable moment. More often than not, we're stunned speechless.

I've been on the receiving end of hurtful assumptions related to being a woman, single, social worker, probably even as a White Sox fan. The stories I could tell. The stories I probably will tell.

The other day, however, I wanted to know about your stories. I've been thinking a lot about assumptions lately, not only how they make us feel but how we can respond. So I asked on Facebook and Twitter and the responses came pouring in.

I wasn't surprised by most of the feedback but I was surprised by how much pain was attached to many of the responses. Clearly, I had struck a nerve.

I believe more strongly than ever it's important to figure out ahead of time how to graciously respond when people make inaccurate assumptions about us. The only hope we have in correcting hurtful assumptions is by educating and then letting our lives speak for us.

Today, let's discuss the assumptions people make about singles and how we can respond. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the assumptions people make about married folks.

The response on Storify:

 

 

I ask again: if you're single, what assumptions have people made about you? More importantly, how have you responded?