I recently declared I’m ready for partner love in my life and I publicly set the date. And I am. But as I grow and reach toward this possibility I am delighting in my single life. I have been a single lady for many years now. At times I’ve complained about this, mostly in the moments when I want a warm body alongside me in bed, when I ache for the wonders and wilds of sex with another, and when I want someone to read to me. (In lieu of all of this I watch Taylor Mali read his poem, “Reading Allowed”—for me this is porn).
But truth be told, and I don’t know why it shouldn’t be:
Being single is wonderful and I adore it.
Here are My Top Ten Delights of Being a Single Lady:
1. Making My Own Days. I love waking up knowing I have a whole day ahead to do with as I please—to make poems, to grow food, to swim across the lake, to read, to dream.
2. My Kitchen. I used to feel profound vulnerability cooking for others, as if I was putting my life on the line, risking banishment from the tribe. And then living alone I discovered that food without anxiety is nourishment from beginning to end, and cooking is embodied love. I cook for myself as a creative act of self-care, of unknown delight, of nourishment for my life. And have come to cook for others in this same way.
3. Solitude and Silence. It took time and patience and a great deal of trust in something beyond my small mind—and it took many years of single life—to discover there is no other lover like solitude and silence. I am filled with presence by this abundant source of grace.
4. Not negotiating. Although I’m a great negotiator, and even better manipulator, it is lovely to not. It is lovely to start from the place of finding out what I want with all my heart and move from there.
5. Rich friendship. Single life has given me a chance to cultivate and care for the most deep, daring, downright blessed friendships beyond what I could have ever dreamed of. Soul mates. Life loves. Sweet hearts.
6. Feeling the pain. I’m just not sure I could have taken the risk of journeying down the bone steps, beyond the moon, behind the barn, below the world to where darkness may not give you back if I’d been with another these past years. This trip is essential to loving my whole self, and single life (with the support of rich friendship) made the way.
7. Becoming an Artist. I was born an artist (as we all are) but it took me many, many years—of space and solitude—to accept this, embrace it, and cultivate it. To understand that intentional creating is as necessary to my basic health as breathing, eating, and sleeping. It is non-negotiable. Art has saved my life again and again.
8. Making community and family. Although single life has allowed me much needed solitude I am at heart a family gal and I have never felt without it. Families are there and they will take you in, they are happy to be formed in the moment from loose gatherings of unconnected folks, they will arrive when you need them, they grow outside the conditioned norms we imagine for them with our small socialized minds. Feasts and festivals help them to form.
9. My own glorious body. The sensuous life of being human: this is also non-negotiable. Not something I am going to give up because I am single! Yet for the most part one-night stands and short romances aren’t my thing. So I love my own body alone and give myself pleasure—under the covers, on my yoga mat, skinny dipping in the rivers, dancing, so much dancing. And for this love and movement I say hallelujah and hooray. May we all know this joyful self-loving sex.
10. Jane Austen and Beyoncé. Watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice mini series over and over again (especially this scene), and watching “I’m a Single Lady” late at night under the covers—for me, Jane Austen and Beyoncé are also porn.
P.S. None of these delights will end when I have partner-love in my life. Now that I’ve filled myself up in this way, discovered all this joy, I see I don’t need to give away a scrap of it, in fact I get to share. Can’t wait.
What are your top ten delights of being single? What do you love about this life even if it isn’t all you ever want? Or maybe it is.
Want support in embracing your single glorious life? Hire me. I’ll help.
