When Do You Lay It All Down

Where is the fine line of peace?

I have been struggling lately not with the prospect of being single or not having children.  Those are two things I've had a bizarre sense of peace about over the last decade or so, an almost peaceful relinquishment that it wasn't going to happen and if it did it wasn't going to "traditional" in any respect.

My question of late has been is this peace the root of my singleness have I made myself a self fulfilling prophesy, which I don't think is the case, or is it more so time to hang it all up.  Not necessarily put on the stretchy pants and let myself go (that's not going to happen) but more so root out a space were I just really get on with life and know that single or not, as I have and even more so believe now, know that my relational status doesn't effect the value of my personhood.  And if no tiny human ever takes up occupancy in my uterus I am still fully a woman.

And yet, I know that my family sees me as odd, my extended family even more so... I was at a family reunion this weekend and I felt like the example of what not to do with your life, surrounded by my generation with kids in school.  I received congratulations on my path in life, but all marred with that undertone of pity.  There are days I wish they could understand. That they could understand that the abuse didn't break me, that my family's dysfunction hasn't marred my from the idea of marriage or that it could be successful, that my degree hasn't made my undesirable in our faith community, but rather that just like many successful, intelligent and sassy women before me who have journeyed without a ring but never alone, that life is just as full for them as it is for everyone else who has someone in their bed.

That's what I'm wrestling now that Hebrew is over, with along with along with lots of even bigger school and financial issues and all the fun fallout from losing my TA job before it even began.

PS Out of pure irony I can put a face to one of the men on this blog as I found out today... but I think that destroys the covertness of it all... so I'll hold off until I have a poor judgement call day.  Don't worry ya'll know that's not too far away.