A Valentine's Day Pep Talk

Weekly Notes

I have been married for not quite nine years. For forty-one years before that, however, I was single, very (very) single, so single I got asked to write a book about being single. It was not a #lifegoal. Anyhow, during all those single years, I developed quite the distaste for Valentine’s Day, and marriage hasn’t changed my feelings all that much. My distaste has lingered. Despite having a wonderful husband, who always wants to do something nice for me on this day, I just have too many bad memories of the day to enjoy celebrating it.

So, when a flood of questions came in during the last Instagram Q&A, all from single women struggling with their present status, I understood. Tis the season. When you’re single, there is nothing like every happy couple on the planet celebrating their love on the exact same day, to make you question all your life’s decisions. Like, was that guy who flossed his teeth with your hair on the first date really that bad?

Yes. Yes, he was, my friend.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I decided the best way to answer the questions of women looking for encouragement was to give you a pep talk—a pep talk I wrote fourteen years ago, when I was thirty-five and, as I mentioned, very (very) single. It comes from the last sections of The Catholic Girl’s Guide for the Single Years and it’s all about what do when singleness hurts. Rereading it now, with my husband sitting next to me, driving our little family to Texas, and my three little ones fighting in the back, was somewhat surreal. It also made me realize that the advice I dished out back then isn’t just for single women. Well, some of it is. But a solid 80 percent is applicable for anyone who is struggling their way through a long, hard season. So, even if you aren’t single, I hope you give what follows a read. I still stand by all the advice offered.

Except for my statement that you can’t fly off to Europe while potty-training a three-year old. I proved myself wrong when I did that with two three-year olds last June. God bless me.

(And if you’re interested in buying a copy of the whole book, I have a ton in my basement, so just reach out).

Chapter Seven
Everything the Catholic Single Girl Needs to Know About…
What to Do When It Hurts

It’s a fact. Sometimes being single just plain stinks. No matter how fun and full your single years are, no matter how content you are with what God has given you, and no matter how slavishly you follow the advice laid out in this book, there will still be times when your single status is a thorn in your side. You can pray; work hard at a job you love; twirl in circles with toddlers; date only the right guys in only the right ways; philosophize about singlehood, femininity, and the culture; know the theology of the body like the back of your hand … and there will still be days when you feel like Job—afflicted, persecuted, abandoned, alone.

That’s normal. In fact, it’s to be expected. Being alone when you want to be with somebody hurts. Being barren when you want to bring forth new life hurts. But that’s part of the cross, our cross, that God has permitted us to carry in this particular season of our life. It wouldn’t be a cross if it didn’t hurt, right?

Accordingly, the question for us isn’t, “Will we hurt?” We know we will. The question is, “What do we do when we hurt?”

The culture has some suggestions for us, but most of those aren’t very advisable. Drowning our sorrows in ice cream or booze are short-term fixes that can lead to long-term problems. So is cozying up to some poor, unsuspecting fellow whom we have no intention of marrying or even dating. There’s always my mother’s go-to suggestion, “Stop being so picky.” But you already know my feelings on that one.

Nope. Food, mood-altering chemicals, and sex won’t solve our problems. Neither will abandoning our hopes, dreams, and principles. No matter how miserable we are now, we’re on easy street compared to our sad sisters who’ve tried those remedies.

So what will work?

In ascending order, from somewhat helpful to most helpful, there’s…

Retail Therapy

Okay, I’m sure with those two words, my Catholic credibility just plummeted. But please, hear me out. I’m not talking about shopping ‘til you drop, maxing out the credit card, or trying to fill the husband sized hole in your heart with a swanky pair of Pradas. And I did say we were moving up, not down the helpful coping methods ladder. In all seriousness, however, a little retail therapy, used sparingly and always within one’s budgetary constraints, can be quite consoling.

First of all, it’s helpful because until you’re a lot, lot holier, like St. Thérèse on her deathbed holy, you’re still a girl, which means a new skirt that swishes when you walk or a new sweater that brings out the blue in your eyes, will make you feel prettier. And you need to feel prettier. You need to believe that you’re beautiful, that the reason you’re still single isn’t because you’re an ugly old hag, but rather because the general population of men have been made blind and delusional by the culture. Something new and pretty can help you believe just that…at least a little bit.

Secondly, retail therapy can be helpful because something new and pretty doesn’t just help you feel prettier. It also, if chosen wisely, actually makes you prettier. The right dress or even headband can do a lot for a girl, and in the current marriage market, we need all the help we can get. As my friend Lindsay says, “You can’t go fishing without some bait.”

Finally, the reason you should buy that pearl grey silk dress for your night out at the symphony is because you can. Seriously. Ask one of your married friends. Most of them would give a minor appendage to be able to go out and buy something pretty for themselves. But they can’t. They’re buying diapers instead. Someday you’ll most likely be buying diapers too. For most of us, the number of days we can spontaneously drop a hundred dollars on a dress will be limited. So take advantage of the days while they’re here. They probably won’t last. Then, when the blessed day comes that finds you clothed in sweats and covered with vomit and baby droppings, you’ll be able to fondly recall the night that you were the best dressed woman in Heinz Hall.

Look Upon Beautiful Things

Even if you can’t buy something pretty, you still can look. And I’m not just talking clothes here. Personally, a stroll through Anthropologie does cheer me up, but so does meandering through a museum, walking along a charming street, or thumbing through magazines in Barnes and Noble. God has made such a beautiful world for us and blessed us with the ability to add even more beauty to it. We’re surrounded by beauty. It’s the sea in which we swim, and it’s not there to be ignored. It’s there because we need it. Beauty heals. It consoles. It brings joy, and it brings wisdom. It’s a window through which we see God. In every daffodil and Degas, there’s something of him. So go look at him. Go look upon beauty on a trail, in a town, in Pottery Barn, and let beauty do its thing in you. It will help.

Make Something Beautiful

You may not yet be able to create the most beautiful thing a woman can create—new life—but you can still knit a pretty blanket or sew some lovely pillows. You can paint a picture or (my preferred canvas) a wall. You can plant a garden, photograph ramshackle stairways built into the sides of hills, or bake a three-tiered lemon raspberry cake covered in homemade butter cream icing. If you’re really depressed, you can take on a huge home renovation project. After one particularly crushing disappointment, I gutted my kitchen and remodeled the thing from the studs out. It helped.

Whatever you create, throw yourself into it. Have fun with it. Then, when you’re done, take time to gaze upon it with unapologetic pride. If you do all that, you’ll find that a good bit of your sadness fell by the wayside long ago, somewhere around the time you stopped thinking about all that you don’t have and joined up with God as one his co-creators, strewing the world with beauty.

Live the Life They Think You’re Living

Fact: The number one reason most married couples you know aren’t inviting you over for Friday night dinner is because they think you have something better going on. They believe you’re living the high life, doing all the things they’re convinced they would be doing if they weren’t conducting a Disney Princess marathon in their basement. Prove them right.

Take advantage of this season with a long hot bubble bath and a glass of wine at night. Read for hours quietly by the fireside. Buy season tickets to the ballet or the symphony. Go to that Feist concert. Check out the new tapas restaurant downtown. Throw a fabulous dinner party. Sign up for the cooking class at the local Whole Foods. Learn to knit or sew or sail or whatever else you’ve always dreamed of doing. Above all, travel. See your friends and family scattered about the country. Drive to the ocean. Climb the mountain. Fly to Europe for a week every year. You don’t have to be rich to see Paris in the springtime. $150 bucks tucked away every month for 12 months is all it takes. Give up your daily Starbucks habit and you’re practically there.

Like that grey silk dress, your time for these pleasures is limited. You can’t fly to Europe while potty-training a three-year-old. You can’t take long hot bubble baths when five other people share your bathroom. You can’t pay for flying lessons, when you’re paying for piano lessons. Doing those things now, however, tempers depression in the short-term and enriches your life in the long-term. (Okay, maybe not the bubble baths, but everything else.) You see more and learn more. You grow more. All that will only serve to make you a better, wiser, happier wife and mother…or single aunt and godmother. It also will ensure that all your married friends envy you about as much as you envy them.

Although, you really need to…

Stop Envying

First, because it’s a sin. One of the deadly ones.

Second, because you may not know what you’re envying.

Just like your single life is not the swinging, exciting roller coaster ride that your married friends think it is, the married life of all those couples you’re wistfully envying is not what you think it is. That family of seven down the street? The wife almost left them all last year for another man. The adorable toddlers next to the mom with the newborn in her arms at Mass? The reason the dad isn’t there is because he came home dead drunk yet again last night. Oh, and that newly married couple clasping hands in front of you at the grocery store. Tonight they’re going to go home and have another knock down, drag out fight over the husband’s online porn addiction.

Those aren’t extreme examples. Not in this culture. Nor are they hypothetical. They’re real. All those couples are going or have gone through hell. But just to see them out and about, you’d never know. You almost never do. You can’t know what’s going on behind closed doors, often not even in the homes of your closest friends. You can’t know about the tempers and temptations, the betrayals, the addictions, the breakdowns. You can’t know how miserable and unhappy that beautiful mom with the beautiful children just might be. So don’t envy her. Don’t wish for what she has. There’s a good chance you don’t want it.

And no, not every marriage is an episode of the Jerry Springer Show. Far from it. Even the best marriages, however, have their problems. They’ve got cancer and depression. They’ve got kids who’ve left the faith, are sleeping around, or using drugs. They’ve got nothing in their bank account and in-laws who derive their greatest pleasure in life from rendering snide judgments on the decisions they’ve made. They’ve got toddlers who won’t let them sleep at night, husbands who can’t keep their travel schedules straight, and all of them want nothing more than to be able to go to the bathroom by themselves without their five-year-old walking in on them.

Remember: Marriage is hard. It can be beautiful, fun, glorious, and grand, but it always requires work. It requires dying to yourself so that you and someone else can get to heaven. That’s a high-stakes game, so it’s going to make its players sweat. If God calls you to it and makes it happen, he’s also going to give you the grace to deal with the sweat. In the meantime, give thanks that you’re not juggling a newborn baby and a husband with a sex addiction. Then go pour yourself a glass of wine and stare into the fire. In comparison to quite a few married women, your life is pretty darn good.

Count Your Blessings

Literally. Write them down. Tick them off on your fingers. Use an abacus. Enumerate them however you like, just count them. Count all of them. Your mind, your health, your strength, your friends, your faith, your beauty, your smile, your talents, your job, your lack of job, your wealth, your lack of wealth, your great family, your crazy family, blue skies, green grass, hot coffee, cashmere sweaters, fat babies, broccoli, old doors, new plumbing—whatever it is that floats your boat put it on the list. Then bless God for all of it. Thank him. Let him know you’re not ungrateful. Tell him you see his goodness in all these things, and ask for the grace to see it in your singleness too. Chances are, by the time you’re done counting, you will.

Make a Gift of Yourself

All of us human beings—married, single, religious, consecrated—have one overarching obligation in this life: to give ourselves away in love to others. One of those “others” is always God. He wants us, body and soul. But it’s not just God who’s supposed to get us. Depending on our state in life, it’s also supposed to be our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends, or the crazy old lady across the street. We’re called to make a gift of our time, our energy, our talents, and our love to all those people in order to help them walk the long and often arduous path to God.

Jesus (not surprisingly) said it best: “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life will find it.” (Mt 10:39) Those words don’t just apply to martyrdom. They apply to how we live our life everyday. So lose your life. Give it away. Volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center one night a week. Sing in the Church choir. Teach CCD. Feed the homeless. Take a meal to new mom. Make a holy hour for the intentions of the singles you know. Be available for the 5:00 phone call from the friend in toddler hell. Smile at the crabby clerk in the grocery store.

Whatever you choose to do, do it often and do it gladly. God, as our mothers like to tell us, loves a cheerful giver. Accordingly, the more cheerfully we give ourselves away, the more joy, the more life God gives back to us.

Go Have a Face to Face with Jesus

In the battle against the single girl blues, retail therapy and home renovations have their place, but when it really hurts, get yourself post haste to the nearest adoration chapel. Sure, you can stay home and shout at the Crucifix or tell the picture of the Sacred Heart in your hall just how furious you are, but those are things. They’re not Jesus. If you really want to have it out with him, go do it in person. Head straight for the monstrance.

True, if there are other people there you can’t shout. But you probably shouldn’t be shouting at Jesus anyhow. He is Lord of the Universe after all. Plus he loves you and wants nothing but the best for you. He has a plan. Your singleness on this day, in this moment, is part of that plan. He’s not surprised you’re still single. He saw this day coming from all eternity. He’s accounted for it. He’s providing for you through it. And whether it lasts another month, another decade, or longer, he will continue to provide. Seeing him and being in his presence can remind you of that. It can also remind you of how much you love him, and how your deepest desire is not for a husband and family, but rather to do his will.

I’m not saying don’t be honest with him. My guardian angel would start whispering “hypocrite” in my ear if I did. Also, it’s not like God doesn’t already know every angry thought you’re thinking, so there’s no sense in trying to hide those. Besides, you need to be honest with him. You need to tell him how you’re hurting, why you’re hurting, and what you would like him to do about it. That’s a basic requirement of any relationship, and your relationship with God is no exception. He wants to be your most intimate confidant. Let him be that, and let him touch you with the very real, palpable graces that come from sitting in the same room as his Body.

If you do that, not only are you more likely to get the answers and the comfort you need, but you’ll also start to recognize that although your pain is great indeed, in the grand scheme of crosses, you did not draw the short stick.

Which brings us to…

Offer It Up

I know. Most annoying words ever. Trusted fall back of Catholic moms everywhere. Abstract theological concept always easier to understand in theory than do in practice. Nevertheless, I got to say ‘em, because it’s your job—your assignment from On High.

God, you see, has this thing about not doing anything by himself. He always wants co-workers, people participating with him in his work of loving, running, and redeeming the world. Who knows why? It probably has something to do with him being a communion of Three Persons. God, by his very nature, doesn’t do “alone.” But regardless of why, he’s really big on partnerships, and one of the main ways he’s given us to partner with him in the redemption of the world is suffering. Paul makes that clear in Colossians 1:24. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…”

Would it be nice if the main way we brought love and salvation to the universe were by picking daisies? Yes. It also would be nice, however, if God hadn’t died a horrible, painful death on a cross. But he did. That’s how awful sin is. That’s the price he had to pay to buy us back from it, to redeem us.

When it comes to suffering for our salvation, God has already done the heavy lifting. But he asks those of us who love him and follow him, to join him along the way of the cross, to pick up our sorrows—great and small—and willingly carry them so that we (and others) might find our way to the mansion he’s prepared for us.

That’s what offering it up is. It doesn’t mean denying that your cross feels heavy or pretending like it doesn’t hurt to hold. It simply means you don’t run from it. You carry it. And as you carry it, you tell God it’s okay, you’ll carry it as long as he permits you to carry it because you recognize this is what’s necessary and, eternally, best. If it helps, you can tell him you want the merits of your acceptance to benefit someone else, your friend whose marriage is in trouble or your aunt who’s dying of cancer. Better yet, you can hand over all your merits to Mary, to dispense as she, ever so perfectly, sees fit.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to smile while you do this. Nor do you have to think deeply and theologically about it. You don’t even have to understand it. Sometimes, you don’t have to do anything more than look at a crucifix and in the midst of tears say, “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.” God will always accept that offering, and before you know it, the tears will stop. You’ll find the strength to get on with the day. And hope will work its way back into your heart.

Sit at the Foot of the Cross

When all else fails, when no comfort comes, don’t despair. Just go the cross. Contemplate Christ’s face, bruised and bloody. Contemplate his body, given for you. Contemplate his love, unwanted and rejected by the people he came to save. Look upon him on the cross and sit with him there. Endure with him the hours when no comfort came, when the heavens were closed and the universe seemed bereft of grace. In that, know that you, mysteriously, are comforting him. You are his solace, his company, his companion in man’s darkest moment.

I don’t know how it works. You’ll have to take this one up with God. But, somehow, just as the sacrifice of Calvary can be made present to us at each and every Mass, our love of Christ in his suffering can somehow be made present to him on Calvary. At least, that’s what the mystics say. I like to think they’re right. Because when nothing else helps, this does. The idea that my sitting with him in silent suffering comforts him, comforts me as well. If my being sad about being single somehow enables me to soothe one tiny mili-ounce of his pain, I’m okay with that. I’m actually more than okay with that. I’m glad for it. And if you try it, you might find you are as well.

***

One last thought before we close this chapter out. Or, more accurately, a confession: I wasn’t all that happy when I sat down to write these pages. Actually, I spent most of yesterday crying, telling Jesus how angry I was at him, and contemplating the shape of my spinsterhood. That usually involves resolving to sell my house, move back to my parent’s hometown, and butter up the nieces so they’ll take care of me in my old age.

In my defense, it’s been a rough week. I’ve got one younger sister who’ll be giving birth to her third baby in a few days and another younger sister who’ll be getting married in a few weeks. I’m also planning my 954^th baby shower for a former roommate, writing an article about the various romantic ways Catholic couples met, and contemplating my impending 36^th birthday. Then there’s this little book, which is fun, but let’s just say being single long enough to be considered an expert on the topic was never one of my life’s goals.

Like I said, rough week.

Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly psyched about writing this chapter today. What I really wanted to do was go for a walk, put on something pretty, and make my way to Anthropologie for a little retail therapy. But like the good, responsible girl that I am, I settled down in my chair to type out these pages. First, however, I prayed my rosary and read my devotional. And God, in his oh so funny way, had a message waiting for me there: Get over it.

Really, that’s what he told me. In writing. The devotional reading for the day was all about a man, walking through a forest, and fretting about what perils he would encounter along the way. This same man had already been assured by a trusted friend that all would be well, that every need would be provided for, and sure protection granted against every trouble. But he fretted nonetheless.

So what did God, in the devotional, have to say to such behavior?

“I am with you to guide and help you…So leave your foolish fears, and follow Me, your Guide, and determinedly refuse to consider the problems of tomorrow. My message to you is, trust and wait.[1]

Trust and wait.

That’s what this chapter boils down to: Trust and wait. In the end, that’s all we can do. That, perhaps more than anything else, is our challenge and cross. But we’re not alone in it. God is there now, and he always will be for as long as we faithfully walk the path laid out for us. That much we know.

And if it just so happens that we’re walking down that path in vintage-inspired pink dresses from Anthropologie? Well, that’s just all the better isn’t it?

Post-Script

Before we part, I have two summary pieces of advice for you.

The first I’m stealing from Dr. Janet Smith, who, at the first national Theology of the Body Congress, held just outside Philadelphia in July 2010, reminded the singles in the crowd that for the most part, singlehood was not something God was forcing upon us. Rather, she said, we’ve chosen it. We’ve chosen to put God and God’s law first. We’ve chosen chastity over promiscuity. We’ve chosen our desire to have a faithful Catholic mate over just any mate. And all of those choices have shrunk our pool of eligible spouses. We have fewer single men to choose from, and there are fewer single men by whom we want to be chosen.

But again, she reminded participants, that’s our choice, and we need to recognize it as such.

Smith is right. If all we wanted were marriage—any marriage to anyone—most of us would be married by now. Or we would be soon. If we were willing to widen the pool by forgetting about our faith, abandoning our morals, and lowering our standards, the majority of us could scare up some kind of spouse.

But that’s not what we want. We don’t want a spouse. We want the right spouse, a spouse who loves Christ, desires our ultimate good, and is capable of entering into a healthy, holy Catholic marriage. We want the kind of spouse God desires for us, and we know that anything less is not worth it. That’s why we’ve made the choices we have, choices that have resulted in our current single state. Those have been our choices. God didn’t force them upon us. We need to recognize that, and we need to own the choices we’ve made. They’re good ones.

So that’s the first piece of parting advice: Recognize that your singleness is, at least in part, by choice, not just by chance.

The second is this: Stop borrowing trouble from tomorrow.

I say that, of course, as one of the world’s greatest authorities on the practice. Like everyone, there are many things I’m bad at—math, sports that require depth perception, keeping my opinions to myself—and many things I’m good at—cooking risotto, hosting parties, charming small children. But there are only a few things at which I could be considered an undisputed expert. Borrowing trouble from tomorrow falls into the latter category.

Over the years, I’ve expended enormous amounts of energy fretting and fussing over one imaginary scenario after another—friends moving, airplanes crashing, my yet to be conceived babies dying. Really, you name it, I’ve probably worried about it. The one fear that has wrung the most tears out of me, however, is the vision of my sad, lonely, old maidhood—me alone on Christmas, me wasting away in a nursing home, me in a solitary grave buried far from friends and family. It’s a bit crazy, I know, but when I’m really down about being single, it’s difficult to keep my mind from going there. One minute I’m crying because I have no babies, and the next minute I’m envisioning my half-eaten corpse covered in cats. As it so happens, the pain from that imaginary future vision is always a hundred times worse than the pain of not having babies right now. Not having babies makes me sad. The thought of dying alone makes me panic.

There’s a reason for that, of course, a reason I’m getting better at remembering as the years go by.

Our God is a God of the present moment. He’s with us now, in the day, and he gives the grace we need for the day. He gives us the grace to be alone today. He gives us the grace to be childless today. He gives us the grace to be single today. And that’s it. Grace for the present sorrow, the present need, is all we get.

Tomorrow, when there’s a new sorrow or a new need, he’ll give us the grace to deal with that. If we choose to fret about it now, however, we’re on our own. It will feel unmanageable and unbearable because it is unmanageable and unbearable. Grace and grace alone makes suffering endurable, and we’re not yet being given the grace to be single or childless or alone tomorrow. We’re being given the grace to be single, childless, and alone today.

So be in the day. When imaginary fears about the future rear their head, dismiss them. Ask God for the grace to deal with the problems on your plate now, to guide you now, to console you now. Likewise, remember that you don’t know what the future holds. He does. He’s planning for it. He’s accounting for it. He’s not going to abandon you to it. Again, trust.

Believe it or not, God does know what he’s doing. He knew what he was doing when he made you to desire marriage. And he knows what he’s doing now in permitting those desires to go unfulfilled for the present time. He could have made you differently. He could have worked in the events of your life and others’ lives to make things turn out differently. But he didn’t. He didn’t because this way, for you, is the best of all possible ways.

On one level, I know that’s stating the obvious. I also know, to most of us, it doesn’t always feel obvious. It doesn’t make sense why we—women who understand the truth about marriage, are open to life, and want to do the whole family thing God’s way as opposed to the culture’s way—are still single. It seems like such a waste—such a sad, tragic, needless waste.

But God doesn’t see it that way. He sees our present singleness as part of a plan he has to lead us to his limitless love. He also sees our sorrows, accepted and joined to his, as the most precious gift we can give him, a gift he can in turn use to lead others to that same love.

We need to trust that he’s doing that. We need to trust that he will do that. Even when we can’t see or understand, we need to trust. It’s one of the odd paradoxes of faith: Only in trusting what we can’t see or understand, will we ever see or understand.

In truth, these single days of ours will never be a waste unless we choose to waste them. We get to decide if we waste the joys, the sorrows, the opportunities to grow and learn and serve. We get to decide what we do with this time we’ve been given. And as I keep saying, the time is limited. You and I may be single this day, this month, this year. But we won’t necessarily be single next year or the year after that. One way or another, our single days will end. When they do, we don’t want to look back with regret on all the grace-filled chances that we thumbed our noses at because we were too busy or too afraid or too close-minded to see them. We don’t want to have missed all that God wanted to give us, because it wasn’t what we wanted when we wanted it.

So trust, accept, buy yourself some pretty flowers, and know that God has great things in store for you. The fate he has for you is not a sorry one. It can’t be. He’s in it. He’s part of it. He is it. You might not have the call to give your heart to God exclusively in this lifetime, but he’s still the one you’re meant to end up with in eternity. Which means he’ll be there for you in time as well.

With him, you can survive anything. Even the single years.

(For those who asked if I have written about our truly insane, “don’t try this at home, kids,” love story, you can find it here.)

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[1] A.J. Russle, God Calling (Barbour: 1989). Entry dated March 26.