New Year's Revolutions

I resolve this year to take more chances as opportunities come up. There have been too many times when I didn't take an opportunity because I was too afraid or because I wanted things to be just so. I waited so long without making a decision that the opportunity was lost. I have missed out on the kind of opportunities that I'd been waiting for for a long time, chances to make a difference in the world, relationships that would have made me happy, choices that would have saved me money.

I also resolve to get a handle on my social life, which is a brutish entity apparently separate from myself, because the two of us are in a constant battle. I have learned that my shyness, anxiety, and chronic loneliness is so extreme that it interferes with my ability to make new friends. I have an even more difficult time growing close friendships, which I can count on one hand. The rest of the world has access to deep, meaningful relationships and I'm trying to communicate in Morse code. I'm taking steps to learn some skills that have broken down over the years as I came to expect rejection, and some that I never had in the first place.

On that note, I'm also learning how to distinguish between realistic friendships and ones that I have built up in my head, and how to let the superficial ones go. I don't want to be anyone's friend because they pity me, and I don't want people to lead me on. I think I'm a pretty awesome person, and I want my real friends to think I'm awesome too, not weird, not creepy, not a burden. I've nearly buried all those "out of sight, out of mind" friendships, those "he's/she's not into you if he/he isn't calling you" friendships. I want to spent my time on people who identify with me, not waste my time on people who would rather be somewhere else.

Here's to a new year.

Off beat mama

I think a lot about being a mother. A lot more than I talk about out loud or than other people probably think I do from my appearance and personality. I've wanted to be a mom since at least five years old (I also wanted to be an astronaut and a doctor, but that's a different blog post) and at 26, my biological clock is ticking louder than Big Ben. And I don't just want to be a mom; I want a huge family, maybe five kids.
Two things threaten my natural motherhood: the fact that I haven't had so much as a date in 5 years and a hormonal condition called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome of which infertility is a common symptom. Even before my diagnosis, I've been pretty comfortable with the idea of adoption, you know, since I want five kids and don't really want to overpopulate the world. I don't really care that much about being a wife anymore, although it would be really nice to have a love life to go along with my family. I am more and more interested in single-parent adoption.
I don't talk about adoption all that much because people get weird about it. My own mother only brings up the problems that our adoptive family friends have had. My condition doesn't give a promising future for IV fertilization, and I don't feel right about it anyway, not with all the parent-less children out there for whom even one parent would be better than aging out of foster care.
I worry about reception from my family. I worry that my parents would not think of my children as their real grandchildren. I worry that all they would try to do is talk me out of it instead of supporting me and preparing themselves just like they would as if I were pregnant. I am afraid no one will take me seriously, as if it were a phase I'm going through instead of a constant internal battle that's been raging for years. I am afraid that they will think I'm not mature enough, that they will only express doubt instead of confidence in my parenting ability. I have enough doubts, thank you! But so does every expecting family. I've been blessed with lots of nuclear families in my life, but why should I bear the barren curse of my namesake (Hannah) just because I don't have a husband? I have so much love to give, and I feel like it's a waste if I don't get to fulfill the only thing I want out of life at the cost of everything else.

All The Single Ladies (and single men)

I've been feeling the sting of being single a lot more lately. It's May, so wedding season is coming up, and my engaged webfriends are talking about their bridal showers and arguments with the DJ and the drama that their FHs and FMILs are making (that's "Future Husbands" and "Future Mother In Laws" for those of us who don't live in the world of family acronyms. First comes FH, then comes DH, then comes DD and DS in a BC.) At church, I am the only adult who is not married, much less with children. The pressures of marital roles don't apply to me, so I pretty much have nothing to talk about besides work and crafting and my cat, which just makes me sound like an old cat lady. At work, I'm the only single person who doesn't have kids. I haven't heard from many of my other married friends since fall.

I don't mind being single right now. I mean, I'm going to England for a year, and I'm really glad that I don't have to leave anyone behind. I just wish our kind were not so invisible in the world, the single non-parent. There's a Mother's Day, a Father's Day, wedding anniversaries, date nights, play dates, where those people receive praise and love and surprises because they've got the privilege of being attached to other people, but single people who live alone throw their own birthday parties. There's an Offbeat Bride site and an Offbeat Mama site, but an Offbeat Singles site would just be an online dating site for hippies and ex-punk rockers. I don't know how to have a good time as a single person since my friends moved away or got married because the only information out there for single people is how to get un-single. Maybe that's a plus but it's really not what I'm looking for.

I'm glad I'm not going to a big church right now because this is how it would work: If you're single, 1. something is wrong with you and you need to go to the meat market group to get un-single, and 2. while you're at it, you've got nothing better to do with your time than to serve the married people and parents so they can get a much deserved break. I liked hanging out with middle schoolers then and I hang out with high schoolers now, but the pressure and obligation for single people to take care of other people's kids while they go get their spiritual fix is intense.

I don't think that most married people recognize the special needs and internal struggle of single people (looking or not), or the way we get excluded from the common experience of home life and children. I'm reading a book about singleness and how we get unhappy with being single because of our marriage script. From youth we mark off an age at which we would like to be married. For me, I passed that marker on my last birthday, nearly four years since the end of my last relationship. My mother was 28 when she got married, and I feel like if I get there, it's all over. I watched my four older cousins marry at increasingly younger ages, so now I feel like it's my turn. We get an idea of the kind of person we want to marry. I wanted (and it's really common for people who are shy and insecure to get this idea) someone that other people thought was just the coolest, so they would be jealous and wonder how someone like me could land someone so great. I want children more than I want to be a wife, and with every new year, I feel like that chance is being taken farther from me. I wish there was a way that married or engaged people could learn to be more...considerate? That's not the word I'm looking for...just more aware of all that we go through.