Today’s guest post comes from Meg who is originally from the great state of Wyoming, but currently lives in Northern Utah with her husband. She is a Registered Dietitian and loves food! At times, she fancies herself a writer. She also enjoys reading, cooking, music, dancing, and all things delicious.

“I want to conclude this message by saying if the focus of your life and all your subsequent activities in life are not pointing towards marriage, then you are sinning…” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I quietly shifted in the uncomfortable church pew and glanced at my best friend, Anna, to see her reaction to this statement. Her face mirrored mine: the obvious “did-he-really-just-say-that?” mixed with frustration, guilt, and sadness, with a hint of “what’s-wrong-with-me?” lying just below the surface. I sighed and turned to not-so-subtly look at the reactions of my fellow student ward members. There were a lot of looks similar to mine and Anna’s as well a lot of restless shifting in the pews, as if focusing on finding a more comfortable position on the hard benches would erase the sting of that last statement. The bishop’s remarks were quickly followed by the closing song and prayer. The typical post-meeting chatter after the final “Amen” was a little more subdued than usual. I couldn’t help but wonder if other people were mulling over the same questions in their minds as I was: “Sinning, really?!?!” “Am I doing enough?” “Am I doing my best?” “Is my best good enough?” “What if I never get married?” “Why am I not married?” And, of course, the question that rocks all single people at some point in their lives, “What’s wrong with me?”

Over the next week, I spent most of my mental energy thinking about the things my bishop had said. I was angry and I couldn’t really explain why his words had such a negative effect on me. My bishop had a kind heart and was a very good man with a wonderful enthusiasm for the gospel. I knew that marriage was divine and sanctified of God. I also knew it was important, it’s just… I was growing weary of feeling as if I was failing life because I wasn’t married. I spent the following weeks dissecting my life, trying to pinpoint exactly where I had gone wrong — pinpoint exactly why I was still single.

My funk lasted the better part of a week. Over and over I prayed to my Heavenly Father, begging to know why, oh why, was I still single. Pleading to know what I needed to do to rid myself of this stigma. I wanted an immediate answer: I wanted my own Sacred Grove experience, or at least some sort of sign or light at the end of the tunnel (say, my wedding date) to keep me going. During this time I let myself drown in pity and reflected on other experiences that added to my weariness of being single: Well-intentioned ward members telling me I’d be married within the year upon returning from my mission; I heard it many times and started to believe it. One year came and went, then two, then another. Meanwhile, a friend two years younger than I returned from her mission and was engaged within a month! The well-meaning inquiries from members of my home ward: “Well, Meg, when are you going to get married?” “Perhaps if you acted a little less confident, boys wouldn’t be so intimidated by you.” The sympathetic “what’s-wrong-with-her” looks I got from the same ward members whose daughters were already married and/or pregnant. Their daughters had been Beehives when I was a Laurel. All the blind dates I had been on who said they had had a great time and would call me and never did, not once.

The irony of this “pity party” was that about three weeks prior to returning from my mission, I remember thinking, “I would like to be single for a little while. I’m not in any hurry to get married. I really had fun before my mission and I don’t think being single is bad at all!” I had gotten exactly what I wanted, and instead of finding joy in what I wanted, I let comments, sermons, dates, etc., make me feel that my life had less value because I was single. The more I examined my life and searched my soul to find what was wrong with me during the following weeks, the more the Lord allowed me to see the wonderful things about my life and about myself. I discovered that I was doing good things: working and supporting myself, getting an education, participating in my church meetings, attending the temple, institute, firesides, and other ward activities regularly. And I NEVER turned down a date because I thought, “Hey, you never know.” I was not perfect by any means but I had a great life, one that deserved to be celebrated and lived.

After weeks of feeling sorry for myself, I realized that while I may not have a boyfriend or even many dates, life was still wonderful. Being single did not make my life any less valuable. It was then I resolved to “court” myself: to focus on how wonderful being single was and stop wishing it away. I did not want to look back on my single life and realize I had wasted it pining to be married. I wanted to look back and see just how much fun I’d had, the good I had done, and the progress I’d made. I didn’t need to be married to live life. I just needed to decide to live and take advantage of this wonderful time in my life! It’s not to say that I still didn’t have my “why-I-am-I-not-married” moments, but they were fewer and further between, and with my new-found zeal for life, it was much easier to stop the pity parties before they started.

Life became much sweeter. I was more aware of what I like to call “movie moments” or “perfect moments,” those moments is life where everything is perfect, just like in the movies – only better because they are happening to you. Most of these moments didn’t even involve men or dating. They happened in the simple moments of my life: bike rides, laughing with my friends, warm summer nights, eating ice cream. It was these perfect moments that allowed me to see just how grand life could be and to feel the love my Heavenly Father had for me and to thank Him for the ride. I learned that life is a gift. Period. It doesn’t matter if you are single, married, widowed, or divorced. What matters is what you do with what you are given on a daily basis. All of us have a different path in life. All of us are fighting a “battle.” No one need demean the life they have been given simply because they check the “single” box on job applications and government documents.

Related posts:

1. All the single ladies
2. Launching our youth into adulthood
3. Twoo Wuv

This Up Close: LIVING SINGLE post comes from the energetic and entertaining, Sheryl. She grew up in Virginia and currently teaches school outside Washington, DC.

So when I was first asked to write this post, I thought to myself, “Seriously? I’m being asked to write a post about being single? I’m only 26! I guess I’m the next Sheri Dew. Better yet, since my name is Sheryl, I’d be the next Sheryl Dew.” But in reality, I do have an opinion about being a single, black female as a Latter-day Saint Christian, and I don’t mind sharing it.

Living just outside of the Nation’s capital where everyone is so concentrated on verbalizing their resume and playing the asking game of, “Who do you know?” and “What are you doing here in DC?” before asking your name, it can be a challenge to remember the more important principles of God’s eternal plan for His children. However, I do think about one of those principles often and that one is, eternal marriage. I openly tell people I want to be married. Sometimes I get the response of, “Don’t think about it and continue on with your life.” I sometimes want to scream back and say, “It’s not like I’ve been waiting around and not doing anything with my life! If you’d like my resume, I am a BYU graduate and a former collegiate athlete. I served a mission. I returned honorably and worked at the MTC. I’ve worked three years for the Especially For Youth program both as a counselor and a building counselor. I currently teach just outside of DC through the Teach for America program where I’m doing my best to alleviate the achievement gap. and I’m almost finished getting my masters!” (Out of breath) Instead, I usually respond, “Well, I really want to be married.”

So when I sit down and think about it, I wonder why I’m not married? It could be my race. I belong to a predominantly white church (well in America at least) and I’ve heard the most outlandish comments from people I’ve dated like, “My dad thinks it would be a bad business idea if I ever married a black girl.” However, I’ve also dated boys outside of my race whose parents embraced me with open arms. Is it the fact that I come from a single parent home? In our culture, that is taboo whether anyone wants to openly admit it or not. In response to that I grew up in a very stable home centered around strong gospel principles and values that I could carry into marriage and although it isn’t the typical family set up, it’s how I was raised. Please don’t judge. Sometimes I think, “Could it be me? Am I too picky?” However how can someone be too picky when there aren’t that many dateable options?

At the end of the day, I’m left feeling frustrated and confused. I’m left thinking, it’s a miracle that two people can find each other in this huge world, be single at the same time, like each other the same amount to commit to dating each other and then commit to eternal marriage. As I look at all of my married friends’ blogs, I think, “Wow they are so happy. There is something missing in my life. I’m so behind!” Even though marriage doesn’t equate to internal happiness, I know I yearn for it. I want to be married. I want to be starting a family in THIS life not just in the next to come! I love Sheri Dew, but I don’t want to be her.

Even though this topic can be a frustrating topic for me and many of my single friends, when all is said and done it only takes one. We are frustrated by the men in our wards who aren’t dating or asking us out. We are equally frustrated from the choices of guys we have to date. They are often focused on their careers and having fun. As one guy told me once on a date, “I like being single. I finally have money in my life and I can do what I want when I want.” To that I think, “Marriage isn’t some lock where the key gets thrown away buddy. You can have fun when you’re married too!”

Again, it only takes one. That one can be found. That one has been found for many.

Related posts:

1. Choose a companion you can stand…
2. Courting Myself
3. A Moment of Clarity

She begged for more details, downright giddy, as I recounted some episode from my “crush-of-the-month” on our way to work. Kelli had been married for a few years, her husband Grant was in medical school and she taught kindergarten at the same rural Virginia elementary school where I taught.

It seemed so improbable to me. Surely marriage with all its fringe benefits was better than some construction worker asking  for my number that week. How could she miss those Friday nights waiting for a phone to ring?  At the time I didn’t really get it, but now I do.

I took for granted the deliciousness of love in that season: the way a second look, that lingered a moment past casual, could stop me in my tracks and hang in my mind for days; or the way the subtlest touch of someone hand could steal my breath, leave me momentarily hazy, almost paralyzed; the way my head would pop and buzz, with the chemistry of it all, and those punch drunk days after a first kiss.  It was funny how someone’s undivided attention could leave me stumbling through my usually unflustered words, and that nervous way I would bite my lip to hold back an all too revealing-smile.

Conversations in those days jumped impetuously from one thing to the next and were always seasoned with witty banter. I revelled in those heady, dreamy days of distraction, where someone was constantly hijacking my attention and, interrupting my thoughts. I rolled out of bed in the mornings, the words of love songs echoed as I pulled on my favorite jeans, swiped mascara on my eyelashes, and bounded out the door wondering how the day would end.  At night, I would fall asleep trying to contrive ways to see “him” again, rehearsing dialogues, and replaying in slow motion everything past, digging in for deeper meaning, and telling clues. 

The magic of it all hangs and hinges on newness, the yet unknown, some imagined potential of experience. Stirred in with the carefree energy of youth, it is an intoxicating concoction. As much as I was a very level-headed, un-boy crazy girl, I will own up to at least a good two dozen solid crushes in my life and readily admit, few things in life are as delectable, securing a place for them on my top 10 list of the best things in life.

Don’t get me wrong the downsides of crushes are legion. Opposition in all things. No honey without the sting of the bee. Every time a few days passed and that call I hoped for never came. The moments when I’d realize that even my most ardent pull-out-all-the-stops-flirtations were in vain or I’d see “that guy” bringing some other girl home from a date or talking with someone else at a party and I’d realize they really weren’t that into me, the soundtrack of my day could turn quickly from over- the-moon to pensive, with a grey timbre, that matched the dull thud in my stomach just like I got from bad elevators. The reality of new love’s fickle transience seemed the constant in my mostly resilient heart. Quiet nights were  spent staring at the ceiling doubting myself, pondering those fresh slights, disappointments, and rejections. Was I really such a bad catch? (Yes, I was once ditched for girl who in her mid-twenties wore zip up footie pajamas like toddlers wear- it did make me question my desirability at the deepest levels.)

Gone are the days of hits, misses, and sometimes kisses. I turned them in to wake up  to the same man every day, to be his last call of the day, to have someone love me enough to wash my dishes, give me massages on demand, and tell me I look pretty on Sunday mornings before church. Admittedly our conversations now frequently revolve around things like sink drains and fertilizer spreaders and I often go to bed at night obsessing about that upcoming meeting with the principal or how to get my son to stop sneaking containers of sprinkles and eating them behind the family room chair.  When my husband had to write a love poem at the request of our stake president for a function we attended, he compared our love to a 50 pound bucket of wheat (because yep he’s  romantic like that).  It’s not new love now, it’s love in a different season, it’s love in the afternoon.

While I claim to be quite a pragmatic girl, I will readily admit that songs on the radio make me wistfully romantic, and nostalgic for those days of fresh, young love, perilous, and tenuous, but still so deliciously, blissful, I can almost taste it on my tongue. A reminder that everything  is to be enjoyed in it’s season.

So tell me do you miss it or good riddance? What do you think of love in all its seasons? Give me your best description of those “new love” feelings and memories from years past.  Give us a page from your life’s romantic folklore- craziest thing you ever did for a crush? Your best dump story (Anyone else dumped for someone who wears footy pjs?) Do dish.

Related posts:

1. Dating, Courtship, Marriage, WORK
2. Love, marriage, sex
3. And She Never Complained

You’ve read the books and seen the films. You’ve sat with your friends and watched, re-watched, and watched again as Colin Firth emerges from that lake. You’ve laughed at the wit, the silliness, the truth, and the improbability. Then you have closed the book or finished the movie with a sigh. You know, though I haven’t mentioned a title or her name, of whom I am speaking, Jane Austen.

Recently, I have noticed my own uneasiness with a few of the characters portrayed by Austen (and others).  It is a discomfort that I have never before felt, and that has nothing to do with the “happily-ever-afters” that inevitably belong to certain characters.  Perhaps  it is the fact that I’ve finally passed one of those birthdays - one of those where upon a switch is flipped, resulting in a real difference of feeling.  It is the spinster role that has me now watching with unease.

In my perusal of these characters, I’ve begun to notice that there are certain qualities inherent in the proper spinster role:

 1. Must have a funny run that is employed with slight hysterics.

2. Has a voice that is not terribly pleasant and which gets higher when excited.

3. Is highly excitable.

4. Is silly (or dull) and has little sense or reason.

This was not the character that I envisioned myself playing.  At the very least, I thought I would have Emma Thompson’s Elinor character as a fall-back.  Now I’m not even sure I have that and I find myself asking: could it be that after all this time Jane Austen has failed me? Not by her promises of a happy marital ending but in her portrayals of what I, by definition, have become – a spinster.

 Of course, my reasonable side (which I still claim to have) points out that relying on any fiction writer—even Jane Austen—as my point of reference for how my life would turn out is completely ridiculous. Yet, there has been very little in my life that has prepared me for this role. The Young Women organization drilled so thoroughly into me that I would (soon) meet a nice returned missionary and marry in the temple that I was at a bit of a loss when this didn’t happen. Most notably, I began second guessing and stutter stepping through school. Do I take the path that might prove useful if I should marry and need to work? Do I choose instead something I feel passionate about? Dare I think about graduate school or will that make me “too smart?”  How silly the questions seem to me now and how I wish I had navigated them better when I was younger.

“Graduating” into a family ward hasn’t exactly offered any greater help in navigating the role of a single adult. Whether it was the priesthood leader who asked me if I  wondered if there was something the matter with me or the women who so kindly let me know that she knew I would be called into the nursery because that is where they put all the women who can’t get married, there has been a lot of pain and anguish.

Not long ago, I had a mini crisis on the issue and for one night the pressure felt too heavy to bear and so when I knelt in prayer I simply said, “I can’t pray tonight. I will be better tomorrow.” I did, however, still reach for my scriptures thinking I would read just two verses.  I could do that much. I opened my scriptures and read 2 Nephi 2: 1-2 and then I cried.  I cried not because the pain had suddenly lifted (it hadn’t) and not because of the promise conveyed in what I had read.  I cried because I knew my Heavenly Father was aware of my struggles.  A couple of weeks prior to this incident, I was reading in Alma when I decided to start over in Nephi.  From there I was unwittingly pushed to read on or slowed to read just half a chapter all because, even then, my Heavenly Father knew exactly where I would need to be. I felt in awe of the orchestration that went into making sure that for that one night I would be okay.

 Most of the time I am just fine.  Most of the time I can revel in the things that I have done and seen.  Most of the time I can recognize that just because my path is different than another’s, it doesn’t mean that I have strayed. But when all of that is just not enough, He is there.

 (Still, would you mind letting me know if I begin to develop a funny run?)

Related posts:

1. True confessions
2. How to be a good Visit Teachee. Or not.
3. How do we put the “society” in Relief Society (or society in general)?

Submissions can be in the form of personal essay or poetry.   Please see our submissions guidelines here.  The deadline for submissions for the Spring 2010 issue is August 15th, 2009.  Come on ladies!  Tell us what you really, really want!  There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but the ways to explore this theme are endless!

Please comment below if there are any particular topics you would like to see addressed in this issue.

Related posts:

1. Dating. Courtship. Marriage.
2. One week left to send an essay or poem on The Mortal Body
3. I Write?