Imperfect Progress Titles

Singleness

Yeah, I did it again. I said I would write regularly about something and then, after one post, I was gone again. Honestly, this season of Covid has been much harder than I expected.

March 29th and April 11th marked the anniversaries of losing my parents. While this is always a difficult time of year, it was exacerbated by being in the middle of a season of isolation. I’m also being sued for a car accident a few years ago. Then a friend of mine died suddenly on April 11th, and I will probably never know exactly what happened.

Honestly, with all of this going on, the hardest party of this season has been singleness.

Those who know me will find this hard to believe because, for a long time, I loved my singleness. I looked at relationships much like some agnostics look at religion: that’s a crutch for people who were weak. Being single in my 30s was a badge of honor; I didn’t need anyone.

Having never been in love, it seemed more stressful than it was worth. The pastor seemed to always be talking about fixing broken relationships. My friends would fight with their partner, then turn to me me and say I needed to find someone. No thanks.

Under both of those excuses, there was a lot of fear of men, which I went into already so I won’t rehash it here. My crazy goal of being married by 35 kept me working on myself, my fear, and trying to meet someone.

My first date with S was mostly for free sushi. He didn’t fit the profile of who I thought I wanted to marry. But as we got to know each other, it was really something special. Two weeks into our relationship, he told me that he’d spend the rest of his life convincing me to marry him. It took me two months, but I was convinced as well.

Unfortunately, S was the first man I have ever fallen in love with so I didn’t realize what was happening. Looking backward, it feels like a 32 year old experiencing a 6th grade relationship. While S had more experience and had been with other girls, he was my first serious relationship and I was confident marriage was in the near future.

So I started telling everyone we were getting married, I built a Pinterest board about wedding stuff, I got emotional about having a wedding without my parents, and basically was running down the path in that direction.

As a Barrett, I don’t like to be wrong. So even when the relationship started to have problems, I ignored them as growing pains or the result of my emotional battle with the idea of marriage. Eventually it got too bad and we broke up; I was devastated.

Now that we’ve past five weeks since the breakup, the acute pain of losing S is somewhat starting to fade. Behind that pain, though, has emerged a deep ache of loneliness I have never known before. For five months, I was with S almost every day. And anytime we spent apart was on the phone or texting.

While we were together, I don’t think I realized how much I leaned on him as an emotional support. But now that the relationship is over, the loss is acute. S was much more gentle with me than I had ever been with myself. When I would be sad, afraid, or hurting, he’d wrap his arms around me and encourage me to cry as he promised to hold me together.

My relationship with singleness is like a person growing up without air conditioning. Before, there wasn’t anything to miss. After living in a house with AC for five months, and experiencing the joy of cooled air, it feels insufferable to return to life how it was before.

In this season, I find myself drawn to old distractions (games, videos, etc) but the only real solution is in Christ. He is the only emotional support that cannot run dry. He is the constant companion that will never leave. He is the bridegroom and I am his bride. He will never cancel on me, no matter how many times I cancel on Him.

If only I could feel His arms around me and hear His voice promise to hold me together.

3 responses to “Singleness”

  1. Roland Moore Avatar
    Roland Moore

    You never realize how much you love Jesus until Jesus is all you have. It seems like you’re now getting very close to Jesus, though under circumstances you would probably rather not.
    Perhaps the purpose of what you wrote wasn’t to illustrate just how men and women experience life so fundamentally differently, but it certainly seemed to do just that. There are so many things you wrote that are easy to read, yet nearly impossible to understand from a man’s perspective. That’s not meant to be argumentative or hostile, merely describing the reality of it.
    I will try to explain to you some of the details behind the mysteries of the differences. I don’t think I will succeed in any way, but the information will be there for you nevertheless.
    One of the worst things a man can do to a woman he’s in a romantic relationship with is to constantly fail to meet her emotional needs. Whether or not you agree with that statement isn’t the point. The point is that nearly all women understand the concept of meeting emotional needs intuitively. If you think that you can easily get a man to understand that same concept, I’d suggest you would have a easier time getting a dog to understand Calculus. Not unlike the dog, the man will never understand. He will cock his head one way, then another, perhaps while whining intensely, but not much more. All he’ll know is that whatever you’re telling him is not about fetching a stick or leaving a mess on the floor. Conversely, a woman sees having a man, and having a situation with a man, as a difference without a distinction. Two things that are quite different in a man’s eyes are simply not seen at all as being different in a woman’s eyes, not unlike emotional needs idea. There are plenty more difficult differences, but they all seem to spawn from that same spot. So you have blundered into the quintessence of the divide between the two perspectives and are feeling a squeeze that feels like it’s forcing the life out of you? I don’t know if there is anything I have to offer up in the form of relief or solace. Few men, if any, understand that a woman is looking to find a man to fit into a void in her life, a void with unique specific dimensions, and a man that can remain there. A woman can tell you many things, and in great detail, about that man, although she has yet to meet him. She just knows that he has to be out there by seeing that shadow of him from hole in her life where he belongs. It’s sort of like she’s finding the right man and then using that man for plugging a hole in the sky above her whole world. You described the technique you are using to find that man, just not the concept behind why to it all. A man never realizes that in a woman’s eyes his filling that specific hole in the sky is his purpose, or his destination.

    Like

    Reply
  2. Seana M Baughman Avatar
    Seana M Baughman

    Jenn, God bless you! I knew your parents in San Marcos when I was a kid. They square danced with my family. I remember when they became engaged. I woke up this morning with your family on my mind and prayed for all of you and then searched the internet to see if I could find you. If you’d like to speak, feel free to reach out. They were tremendous people, and I thank God for their lives and pray each of you is doing as well as possible.

    Like

    Reply
  3. “Good” Friday? – Imperfect Progress Avatar
    “Good” Friday? – Imperfect Progress

    […] blood, and I am overwhelmed by the mental picture of three years ago. I’d just broken up with the only man I’ve ever kissed. Lockdown made me feel so isolated and alone. And then Topher dies on the three-year anniversary of […]

    Like

    Reply

Thoughts?