The Secret's Out-Bridget

So, I volunteer as a mentor for an eleven year old girl.I took her out to dinner last night for her birthday. It was her and I and we were across from a table with a family with, i swear like 8 kids which, while somewhat commonplace for Utah, is a bit out of the ordinary for California. As we were looking at these children as they were continuously changing seats with each other,my mentee tells me "I hope you get to have kids, i think you would be a really good mom.You'd be one of those fun moms" Then she says "well, I'm just saying I hope you do, cuz you are getting a little old to be a mom" Nothing like a kid that has yet to learn about not saying everything you want to say. She had just had that assembly at school for the 5th and 6th grade girls, about puberty and stuff, and I don't know, maybe they told her when you hit 35 you start the countdown to barren years. In all its innocence,this statement really touched me to the core. I felt very vulnerable and raw. I sat there and looked at her, instantly feeling the fear and sadness from the thought about not having kids. It really sunk in,I may not have kids. This feeling is the one that I try to cover up and suppress, the one that I satiate with the idea that if its meant to be it will happen, if its the Lords will, I will procreate...and that I'm very happy and there's many ways to be a mother..and Sherri Dew has always been single and she's very successful and has an amazing life...and these days 60 year old women can have babies, and all of the other things i tell myself to counteract that fear of not meeting the man that I am supposed to and and maybe not receiving the blessing of being a Mom. I remember being a teen ager and seeing older single women in the church, and by older meaning over 25, and just being mortified that i would end up like them...Although I was very immature and naive back then, and didn't know anything really about the life ahead of me, I can't help but wonder if that very fear was some sort of premonition or the beginning feeling of a self fulfilling prophecy. Am I single today because of something I am doing or something I made to happen because of my thoughts. The Secret, which is apparently no longer a secret, because everyone and their grandma has seen the weird DVD about the Law of Attraction, states that if you focus on the lack of something, you attract more of the lack...Have I been focusing so much on the fact that I'm not married and not having kids, that I've brought this on myself. Another wise man,once said, okay he wasn't wise, he was the gigolo character in that movie with Debra Messing, The Wedding Date, "Every woman has the love life that she wants". I wonder if this is true, surely I don't want to be alone. But in examining my actions in the past, maybe i do. Maybe the fear of real intimacy, physical and emotional together is too great for me. I've had physical intimacy, and emotional intimacy, but not necessarily at the same time and perhaps,when I really think of it, not with the same man. This fear may very well be inspiration for actions which are really not conducive to meeting a man that will love me. I don't want to die like Eponine, alone and drunk, OK she wasn't drunk, but she was alone.
Although I feared being a single woman so much as a younger girl, now that I am here, I am thankful for the blessings that the single life has afforded me. I know that my life is full of experiences that are tailor made for me and could have perhaps only been present because I am single. I know that being single has stretched me and taught me and shaped me in ways that I wouldn't trade. Now, I look at other single women and marvel at the beauty and grace of them, and the sheer ridiciosity(is that a word,no i don't think so) that they are single. In seeing other women in my social circle, over 30 and single I am assured by what i see, that although throughout all the years I have searched for that reason why I am single, it is not because i am less than,uglier than,because I can't play the piano,because of the scars on my skin, because I am not one of those skinny girls that looks great in spaghetti strap sundresses,because I get Book of Mormon prophets mixed up (there's a lot of A names,dang,need flash cards or something),or whatever my mind decides to lie to me about. Although the women I know are not perfect..and some have more than their share of neuroticism (present company included),they are are gorgeous and smart and successful..and I know they will find their man, and he will be just as wonderful as them...and they're going to have babies, if they want, even if they need to adopt, cuz how cool is that. And I will too. Thats what i'm choosing to focus on, because for all we know, those weird people in that DVD are right....