Have you ever felt like your life was slowly progressing in a particular direction, and you weren’t feeling it at all? Were you aware of what everyone else was doing, but somehow their path just never rang true for you? Did you feel like accepting the status quo just wasn’t going to cut it in this one life that you had been given? Did you realize that defying expectations was the only way out, but you had no guidepost to follow? I have felt all of these things. This post is about the 3 things that I did to start defying expectations as a single woman, and how you can give yourself permission to write your own story.
Refuse To Be Disqualified
What qualifies as a good and meaningful life? Does it only involve a picket fence lifestyle? Below is my take on what signifies a good life.
A good life:
- Is a life that feels uniquely yours, and is full of gratitude for all of the things that you love and are meaningful to you
- Is full of meaningful connections with a community that you can count on
- Is spent exploring your passions and learning new things
- Is full of experiences that empower and stretch you to grow as a human being
By the time you reach your early to mid-thirties, if you haven’t married or had kids, you are an outlier. As I mentioned in my post titled “The Other Degree, and the Women Who Didn’t Get the Ring”, I myself wondered if I was making a mistake by not being more considerate of society’s supposed timeline for women. Our society has an ideal picture of where you should be at that age, which is steeped in tradition. Many exciting milestones take place in your twenties and thirties, but do they need to happen in a certain order to be valued?
I created a life that I deemed meaningful without marriage and children in my early thirties. I was part of several social and work communities, where we shared our lives and celebrated our important milestones together. These communities became lifelines for me as I weathered life’s storms. I poured myself into my family, friends, and passions and felt content with how my life unfolded.
I was also very aware that in living this unconventional life in my thirties, I was moving into what society deems “spinster” territory. A spinster is defined as an unmarried woman, typically an older woman, beyond the usual age for marriage. Spinsters have been historically stigmatized, discounted, and devalued. I resented this and refused to play along with this antiquated social stratification system.
I decided that I would refuse to be disqualified by my social status. I would not allow society to discount me just because I hadn’t maintained the status quo. When you get clear on what is important to you and what you want YOUR life to look like, everything else falls away. Being part of a couple is great, but the notion that you have to be part of one to have a good life is antiquated. We should all strive to be self-sustaining individuals at some point, and you shouldn’t be disqualified if you haven’t found the right person to share your life with.
Define Your Goals
So you ended up single as I did. It is absolutely okay. Take some time to figure out what goals you would like to accomplish in the next few years or so. There is no reason to feel like your goals are less attainable as a single. It will just look a little different.
Buying A Home
If you are interested in becoming a homeowner, don’t let the fact that you aren’t married yet stop you. I faced this same quandary at that age and decided that I didn’t need to wait for a hypothetical situation (marriage) before achieving this milestone. I can tell you from experience, that buying a home as a single person was a blissfully rewarding experience because I did it on my own. There were no gray areas, and no one to catch me if I was to fall. That in and of itself was character-building.
I will always be glad that I moved forward with that goal because guess what, my 30-something Prince Charming never showed up. Had I waited for the “perfect situation” I would have missed out on so many things. If you are putting off certain milestones because you are not married, I would say that tomorrow is not promised and that you need to create the life that you want to have today.
Parenthood
Maybe one of your goals is to become a parent. Although I never felt an organic pull to be married, I felt the maternal urge in my early thirties. I would be okay with never being married, but I knew in my heart that I truly wanted to experience being a parent. Again I say, if things in your life don’t exactly line up for you from a partnership perspective, don’t allow that to dictate your life choices. There are over 10 million single parents in the United States today and so many different paths that you can take to parenthood. In society, we are led to believe that if you are not married, that parenting is not ideal.
Although I do see the value of having a family within the institution of marriage, I also believe that happy families can be both conventional and unconventional. If you decide to become a single parent, explore it in a way that feels comfortable for you. I became a single parent in my thirties, and it was the best decision that I ever made. If I had let society dictate my life choices, I would have never experienced all of the joys that I looked forward to back when I first felt that maternal urge.
Live Your Truth
Each day that I am blessed to wake up in the morning, I am at peace with the choices that I’ve made, and the life that I have created for myself. I am a single parent, who has never been married, and my life is right for me. Every choice that I made was in support of my unique set of circumstances. As long as you are good with the rationale behind your choices, it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. Validate yourself every day, and release the pressure to conform.
These days I focus on building upon my passions. Find that one thing (or several) that will give you a sense of purpose while fulfilling your goals in life. Be present and unapologetic, and stay close to your truth. When you are living authentically, you will find that regrets are few and far between.
