For good chucks of my life, I would be thankful for the way my life was unfolding. I had a rough idea of how I thought my life would unfold so when certain opportunities came up in my life that I didn’t ever imagine or plan for, I was so thankful. Navigating the extended singleness season is one of the only areas that I find harder, but hold onto faith that it would happen when its meant too. God’s got it, is the thinking that I find peace in.
In my 20’s/30’s my contentment came because I had a good social circle to do life with so some relational needs were being met. I had a job I enjoyed and found purpose in. I was able to invest time and money into hobbies. And I lived in beautiful places and was able to travel to far away spaces.
Then I hit a season when things began to unravel or so it felt. It began with becoming burnt out as a teacher. I never wanted to be a grumpy teacher as I knew my students deserved more. I also want to spend my days doing work I enjoy and feel called to. So I prayed and did the soul searching work of discovering what was next. It was a fun season sitting in the land of possibilities and challenging having to wait for it to unfold.
The next unravel happened when a few things were’t falling into place. I found it difficult to find a decent job to pay the bills and allow the time and energy to build my biz. I was in a place where I was blasted with couples and families. Something that didn’t bother me up until this point but now being in my 40’s was becoming more challenging to navigate. It was nice to be near family, but also felt on the outs even with their best intentions. I had become a foster parent, thinking this was part of the plan and that proved to be not a good fit at the time when I didn’t have the financial piece or social circle established. So these few pieces did a number on my confidence.
I kept praying for friends to do day to day life with. To meet a great guy. And I continued to pray for a job that would provide the time, energy and financial piece to build my biz. Well, a job came through but it was in Thailand. I wasn’t too excited to move overseas again as I was anxious to establish my life in the states. But, I needed to stop the financial bleed, knew I could do expat life after living in 2 other countries and felt it was an answer to prayer. So sitting in the tension of not wanting to go, but knowing this was the next best step, I moved across the oceans again, thankful for God’s provision in at least one area.
I sat in my little studio apartment in Bangkok and the final unravel was a doozy. I was now 44 and the reality set in that I would not have the opportunity to have my own children. I was still very single and knew from the foster experience that I didn’t want to be a single parent because so much would have to be established to make a real go at it. The flood of sadness was so overwhelming I didn’t know what to do with it at times. And most of the time I felt shame for having these feelings, like was I not trusting God anymore?
Here’s the thing though, I was mad at God for letting it play out like this when I had done my best to be faithful throughout the years and wait patiently for a spouse. I was mad that I would never get the chance to experience something that my body was made for. I was mad that I now had to live the rest of my life on the outs of what my family and friends were experiencing and living. And I’m mad that I now have a future with loss already written on its pages.
Disenfranchised grief is what I would later learn I was experiencing. I thought you could only grieve a live human, not just the hope of one. And once I knew this, it started to make sense. It gave me words to what I was feeling and helped me feel that I wasn’t going “crazy”. I learned I had to do extra to take care of myself....like self care on steroids extra. That I could release the guilt of not being as productive as I wanted to be because my energy was being used to deal with the grief. Even thought it was hard to hear, it was helpful to learn that I would be able to move through it and not feel like this forever.
My faith life was also challenged. It was shaken on so many fronts because I couldn’t make sense of what I grew up with. I was told you will get the desires of your heart, knock and it shall be given to you, and all the things. I won’t go into it here how some bible versus are so not helpful to a grieving person, or shall I say how we as humans put our own meaning on these versus to try to help others.
Yet, thankfully, my faith is intact. God and I still have some things to sort through, but I know in my humanness I will never fully understand what he’s doing with my life and look for the day when we can have that chat. So I push through with flexing my faith and hope muscles on the daily...moment by moment really.
I’m feel I’m coming through the hardest part of the grief. I have energy back to get “productive” again and do the work I feel I’m called to in this season. I know that I can weather these difficult storms and have gained great strength from going through it. My empathy muscles continue to be flexed and I’m thankful as I think the world needs more empathy.
My hope in sharing my story is that it would bring hope to others and show that you will make it through and there are better days ahead (I get if you don’t believe that right now, I’ve been there). I hope that someone doesn’t feel so alone in their extended singleness journey and the loss that comes with it on more fronts than just the spouse. And for those that live a very different story than mine, I hope empathy and understanding are grown.
I wanted the pretty, unbroken chair but will take the one that’s still fighting to stay strong and put together. It’s still beautifully functional and serves a purpose.
Naomi Geidel