In exactly which way are you wrong?

This is one of those moments of self-discovery, where I have thought that I have been pretty good about not caring what people think of me, and I am starting to have doubts.

I guess the reason I felt like I was okay is that I do not need people to like me. One thing I have found with my sisters and I is that there are often people who don’t “get” us, but usually these are people whom we don’t like anyway, and the people that we like and admire tend to enjoy us a lot, so we felt fine with that. Related to this, I thought that if I did not feel a need for approval from others, or to be conventional when the convention was stupid, that I was good to go. I appear to be wrong.

For one thing, the other night I was talking to a friend who has some interest in fixing me up with someone, and one of the things she said about him is that he lives with his parents. Okay, I do not live with my mother; my mother and sisters live with me. It’s my mortgage. I have lived on my own, and one thing that has shown me is that I probably don’t want to live completely alone and that finding good roommates is difficult, so if the four of us have found an arrangement that works with us there is no shame in that. I may have some sensitivity on this issue.

Also, for practical purposes, I would need someone who has his own place, or could get his own place, because I think bringing a husband into the mix would be awkward, and I certainly can’t evict my family, so that’s not a selling point. I guess the point I want to be clear on is that I am a fully-functioning adult in terms of my living arrangements. If I am embarrassed about anything it’s not driving. Eek! There’s another one. (But you know, Ray Bradbury never drove either.)

There has also been another one lately, in that Julie and I are on a committee where due to illness, vacation, and schedule conflicts, we have missed the last three meetings and activities. I do feel bad about this. I guess part of it is that even if I might not care about the opinion of the other people involved, I do care about fulfilling responsibilities, and so it is frustrating on that level. Maybe it is worse when the perceived conflict goes against my values, which kind of explains the first section, because staying in a state of perpetual adolescence depending upon others would be a value conflict for me.

I think that might be why the one issue, which I thought was all I had to write about, bugs me so much, and that is about having the right attitude as someone who is single and childless.

I remember once giving a lesson about not putting off your joy, and since I was with a group of single women I did focus on the family aspect of it, and enjoying what we have now. Most of the women appreciated it, but there was one there who did not look at me or say anything the entire time, and this was not surprising because she had a real problem with being single. (She was also very much dependent on the admiration of others, so I know that made things harder for her.) Anyway, I know people like that, who cannot feel like anything is good until someone marries them, and I don’t want to be like that.

At the same time, I know people who glory in being single for the selfish reasons. Their money is theirs. Their time is theirs, and they don’t have to deal with runny noses and teething and homework and all of the nuisances that can come with family life, like having to consider the needs of others. I am really not like this.

I always wanted marriage and children. I still do, actually. I realize they would not be perfect, but single life isn’t exactly perfect either—it’s just different. This is what I have, so I am trying to enjoy it and do good things with it. I know being single gives me different options. I had posted something about writing and a few friends mentioned wishing they had time to write, and someday they probably will, but right now they have jobs, and they are attentive mothers, and they have all of these responsibilities that I don’t, which comes with a lot of frustration but also a lot of joy. I know.

And yet it is something I worry about, giving the impression that I am bitter and depressed (not usually), or selfish and disdainful of children (not at all). It should be enough for me to believe that my values are good, and that my choices are reasonable, and when a depression spell comes along to just deal with it, but no, here I do worry about what people think. And I wonder if that’s really that I worry about them, or that I am not as fully reconciled to being single as I think, but seeing as I still have these sensitivities about driving, household arrangements, and missing meetings, and not even going into my occasional discomfort with how much I love My Chemical Romance, maybe I really am just more insecure than I realized.

I guess I still have a lot of growing up to do.