Freedom

October 2020

Every May, strangers wish me a happy Mother’s Day. Once, on a frigid February evening, a woman on a bus thrust her infant into my arms and said, “You’re a mom, do you think he has a fever?!” I took it as a compliment. 

I’ve always assumed that people can tell just by looking at me that I’m single with no kids. I said that once to a woman I had just met at a party and she looked confused. She said she’d figured I was a married mom, just like everyone else there. Was it my Lands End dress?

My mom got married at 27 and had me at 30, so that seemed like a reasonable time frame for me to do those things, too. I remember breaking up with a boyfriend at 23 and thinking, Well I still have 4 whole years left to get married!

At 29, I thought I’d fallen in love and wanted to marry this boyfriend who had just bought a house I didn’t like in a town I didn’t want to live in. We had a good time and we never argued. Once I asked him if he ever got grumpy and he paused for a second and said, “Nah, not really.”

One night in August, he unexpectedly rang my doorbell. I said,This is such a nice surprise! He said it wasn’t, because he realized that he could never give me what I wanted: To build a life together. I was 30, I was dumped. 

I reevaluated my timeline. 40! Plenty of people get married & have kids in their 30s - I had 10 years to land a man and have a baby. Did I want a baby? I didn’t know, it seemed like a whole lot of work but everyone else was doing it. People are very excited if you get married and are even more excited if you have a baby. That’s worth something, right? And what is a woman, if not a mother? 

I got busy dating. I worked hard, treating it like a  job — a job I was both underqualified and undercompensated for. 

I went on a date with a law professor who kept making phone calls at the table. Another date told me he washed his clothes in his bathtub because going to the laundromat was too much of a hassle. An executive at a luxury hotel invited me out for drinks. It was fun and flirtatious and at the end of the evening I felt like I had him wrapped around my finger. A few days later he admitted he was already in a relationship.

Was dating making me happy? No, but I thought I had to do it anyway. Like it was the law. Like I’d be carted off to disagreeable woman jail if I just gave it up. I clenched my jaw and carried on. 

A chemical engineer insisted on dinner, not just drinks. His messages on the dating app were all very friendly and warm. At the table, his demeanor was different. He sat back in his chair and fired off questions that felt like accusations. He didn’t smile. He didn’t look like his photos either. I was uncomfortable. At the end of the evening, he tried to kiss me. I literally ran away. 

I took a break from dating.

Finally, a long distance flirtation with someone I would see occasionally through work had me excited. He said he wanted to take me to Martha’s Vineyard for a weekend. He didn’t. He told me he’d meet me in Philadelphia when I was there running a marathon. He didn’t. He offered to buy me a plane ticket to visit him in North Carolina. He never bought the ticket and stopped taking my calls. I found out he married someone else shortly after the last time we spoke.

How are you still single? someone would ask me. It must be my terrible personality, I’d reply.

When you’re in your 20s, people will tell you not to rush into marriage and babies but then one day in your 30s you realize folks are looking at you sideways for having taken their advice and you wonder which day it was that was the tipping point.

I attended another bridal shower. It was July. It was outside. It was hot. We were promised ice cream sundaes - but only after we sat in a circle in the beating sun to observe the bride-to-be slowly open gift after gift, refusing to cut a single ribbon, for over an hour. Everyone around me looked cheerful but I didn’t even want ice cream anymore.

As I hit my late 30s, the last of my friends and cousins had gotten married and babies were popping out all over. I felt very far behind my peers on the life progress chart, but I was no longer sure I wanted to try to keep up. It seemed like the husband and kids thing just wasn’t going to happen for me. And maybe that would actually be okay. All of the rejections and dating disappointments over the years were like thin layers upon layers of paper mache that had hardened and created a protective shell around my heart. Maybe it was better this way.

I doubled down on my independence. I’d never call you in the middle of the night crying. I wouldn’t even ask you for a ride to the airport, I’d take care of myself, on my own. I got promoted at work. I bought a house near the ocean. I shared many lovely dinners with friends. I practiced gratitude and meditation. I built a nice life for myself. Some days I would find a little peace.

I went over to the beach for a lunch break. I drove down the long road in the national wildlife refuge along the salt flats. It’s one of the most beautiful places I know. It was August and the swallows were swooping around in tight formation. It’s my favorite. I felt so grateful to be there, to see it all, to be seeing it all again, but there was still a hollow sadness in my heart. I’m alone, there’s no one to show this to, to share it with. Is it real if no one is there to appreciate it with me? Does my life count?

I tend to care about what other people think a little too much, I admit. And it feels more socially acceptable to be divorced than never married at my age. Marrying the wrong person is a forgivable, common mistake because we value partnership at almost any cost. Never partnering  scares us. When a cousin my age finally got pregnant, I realized from my family & friends’ joyful cheers that nothing I ever do in my life will make people as happy as they’d be if I were to get married and have a kid. I sat with the weight of that for a while. I still do. 

I was away for a girls weekend with old friends. I was, of course, the only single and child-free one there. I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen. We were only on our first glass of wine and already I was listening to my friends discuss the strains in their marriages, the frustrations with their husbands, the miscommunications, the stress of parenting, realizing they were not living happily ever after. I recalled the times when coworkers would ask about my weekend and react with that tired parent envy when I told them about a yoga class, reading a book in the sun, puttering in the yard, and making pizza with friends. “Well, I don’t have kids!” I’d apologize.

Oh. 

So women who have checked all the boxes I thought I was supposed to also feel like maybe they’re doing life wrong, that something’s missing, that they’re deficient in some way. They had days when they longed for my freedom, the space I have, and the money I don’t spend on daycare. Maybe none of us “win.” 

Sitting there on that stool, I saw that for all of the years I thought I was missing out on all things wonderful and great, I have also saved myself a lot of pain and heartache and stress. I sleep soundly every night. I get to make all of my own decisions, I don’t have to live by anyone else’s schedule or find a babysitter. Another dud of a date may end with the sting of failure, but I’ve never had to wrestle with ending a marriage. My life is a good life. In some ways my life is so much more simple than the lives of my friends. And sometimes simplicity is lonely. 

Recently I had a close call with love. It was unexpected and it took off quickly. It was terrifying and exhilarating. When I told friends about him, they were so happy and excited for me. People love a love story. Their celebration made me feel warm and good but I felt guilty for enjoying the attention, like I was betraying my old self. Nobody would be this excited for me if I had instead declared that I am AOK with my single life, just as it is. To be fair, I’d never been as giddy over my single life as I had been when our relationship was taking off. A few months later it all flamed out. It was disappointing but for the best. It gave me clarity about what in a relationship would enhance my life and what would weigh it down.

So 40 arrived and I am okay. Aging out of the expectation I had for myself was a relief. 

I must get married and have kids before I’m 40 or else…

Or else…freedom. The shell around my heart has been cracked open, just a little bit. Now that the expectation of the traditional marriage and kids trajectory is off the table, maybe I will find something unexpected and beautiful and just right. Or maybe I won’t. But I will always go visit the salt flats to watch the swallows in August.