In all meanings of the word I am single - but just for tonight. Roommate is out of town on a training and Manfriend is back in Ohio. I'd only lived alone for a year, and hated it, so I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying a short bit of alone time. Since birth I've always wanted to surround myself with as many friends as would have me and been fortunate enough to have entirely pleasant roommate situations dating all the way back to my freshman year at UB. I arrived home after a lackluster yoga class in the East Village (it's usually awesome, it was a total fluke) and some grocery shopping, fully anticipating a lonely evening where I slip into bed as quickly as I could.
Much to my own surprise, I found the time guiltily luxurious. I did a little laundry, drank a little wine (no, really. Just a little.) and cooked delicious food for the next several meals. I put on some Mumford and Sons (thanks to my super hip colleague) and enjoyed an atypically late night in apartment 19.
Oddly enough, this feeling of slight liberation in isolation lead me back to a conversation my best friend and I have been revisiting over the past several weeks. She is married, living the dream in Denver with two beautiful boys and is - shockingly, as I imagined how mature I'd be at this age - one of my only married friends. While lifestyles and life phases have found us on the opposite side of the coin in so many debates (Red or Blue? Knock-off bags? Importance of personal appearance? White or red?) we've been able to deepen our adult-version of our friendship through the simple question: What kind of wife do I think I should be? Her newly-cemented faith drives many of her feelings, and my wishy-washy-wistfulness for the grounding faith used to bring colors mine more than I'd like to admit, but the idea remains - how does one do this new phase? What do we do with these new roles? How do we decide what is best for our new families?
While I don't pretend to have any real answers (I'm not even actually married yet) I've found a lot of solace in the ideas New Jersey Friend has sent my way via A Practical Wedding - it's a lovely, well-rounded collection of thoughts from many women working through the same questions I am. What if the wedding isn't the only thing I want to talk about? What does it mean to be married/ engaged/ committed to someone while maintaining a sense of self? While I have no idea what this next, precipice-like stage of my life will look like, there are some things I do know: I will want and need smart-women time, with or without children. I will want and need great mothers and wives in my life so I can model my development after traits they embody that I admire. And I will want and need a good deal of great food, great wine, and the company of close friends. Because if there's something I know, it's that late-night alone time is precious, but it creates anew the longing for wisdom, wit, and cheeky banter from the brilliant people in my life.
The whole wife/ mother/ matriarch thing? We'll have to wait and see what opinions will surface in that new stage.
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