Happysingle

Today I was reading an article about happy singles - women who aren't searching for a mate, who are actually content in their lives, all by themselves. They distinguish themselves from the "quirkyalones" who are single but don't want to be. The quirkyalones keep posting personality profiles on matchmaking sites and recasting their personalities in hopes of attracting someone who will appreciate them. If I hadn't met my husband, I would be a quirkyalone. Occasionally, maybe most of the time, I'd stray into depressedandmiserablealone territory. I often think how lucky I am to have him and how my baseline mood is so much better than it used to be when I was single.

But. If I knew somehow that being married would never be an option for me, could I be happy?

I thought about this for a while and finally decided that yes, if the pressure of the search was taken away, I would be fine. I could create a nice life for myself, packed full of all the things I like to do: gardening, reading, visiting friends, travel, animals, camping, poetry. I'd take art classes and carry a sketchbook with me. I'd go on long tramps across the English countryside in knee-high boots for the mud, hopping over stiles. I'd probably get a PhD in ecology and have a career in academia, with no family longings to distract me or encourage me to settle for less. I wouldn't have to compromise on anything I wanted to do - no apologies that it rained during the camping trip I planned and really wasn't fun like I promised it would be. It would actually be fun, if I didn't have to take anyone else's feelings into account. I'd lie there Buddhalike listening to the rain and composing haikus, then warm up hot chocolate on my camp stove the next morning and go for a long hike across the dewy fields.

Thinking about this life in another dimension I almost wish it's the road I'd chosen. If only I could live my life again, and again, and do it in every way.