Single, Childless & Independent

"How will you make it on your own?

This world is awfully big.
Girl, this time you're all alone.

Cause it's time you started living,
It's time you let someone else do some giving.

Love is all around, no need to waste it.
You can have a town, why don't you take it?

You might just make it after all,
You might just make it after all."

                                                    (Mary Tyler Moore Theme Song, Sonny Curtis) 

I grew up with that theme song. And even though I was eight years old when the Mary Tyler Moore show ended, I can still envision Mary's famous hat toss in the opening credits. She was the epitome of independence and one of the first single female role models depicted on television. While my mother grew up with the June Clevers and Harriet Nelsons of the 1950s tv land, I was lucky enough to watch feminism blossom in my parents' gold shag-carpeted living room every Saturday night at 9:00 pm. 

Mary was fashionable. She had a career. She had her own money, apartment, a bevy of friends, and a full and happy life. Years later, while my girlfriends practiced writing their boyfriends' last names in curlicued cursive on their Trapper Keepers, I fantasized about having my own place, filled with a library of books, a piano, pets and an army of friends—just like Mary. Looking back, I now realize that what I was longing for was independence.

It's a funny feeling when you look around at the life you've built for yourself and realize that despite all of its twists and turns, you've created a form of your childhood dream. I've been married and divorced. I've dated. I'm currently childless and single. I live in a house filled with books, journals and art supplies. My piano is center stage in my living room. It's a glossy black Baldwin that I bought myself right after my divorce. I have a passel of pets that I adore. I have a career, my own money, my own home. I have a full and mostly happy life.

But.

TV Land has a way of glossing over the details. Independence is hard work. Sometimes, it's exhausting. Sometimes, it's really lonely. Often times, it's overwhelming and scary.

. . .

I was on vacation. My house sitter accidently left the back door open and my dog disappeared. After a series of late-night phone calls to the police station and frantic messages to the local veterinarian where the police hold stray animals, I was able to find my Quinn dog and return to my daily life.

My second day home, I noticed a smell in the kitchen. I had been gone a week, so I cleaned out the refrigerator, thinking I'd find something moldy and gross. I didn't.

By day three, the smell was stronger. I emptied the kitchen garbage. Maybe my house sitter had thrown out some raw meat. I bleached the garbage can.

Day four dawned, and the smell was overwhelming. I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, looking for the source. At the time, I had two cats that loved high places. They had a cat bed on top of the refrigerator.

Maybe they'd gotten sick up there?

Although cat puke never smelled rancid, I reached my hand up to pull the cat bed down. Something dropped off the back of the refrigerator as I pulled their perch down. Curious, I scooted the refrigerator forward and looked behind it. 

A dead red squirrel lay on my tiled floor, squirming with maggots. I retched and ran for the broom and dustpan. I pulled on cleaning gloves, wiped Vick's vapo rub under my nose, and tried to sweep it up. Apparently, the open door hadn't just let my dog out, it had welcomed a squirrel into my home, and my cats had done their job. 

That is independence.  

Loneliness is another part of independence. I'm very good at solitude. In fact, I crave it. But being a single, childless woman means that married friends never invite me to functions with couples. Because I don't have children, it means that I'm not invited to the poolside coffee clutches that friends have while their kids splash around in the water. 

Independence often looks like inequitable expectations like "I can only get together at this time, because, you know, I have the kids,"  and "I can't sit on any committees at work, because you know, I have kids. You have more spare time, you can do it."

Sometimes, independence means invisibility. Family holiday plans are scheduled at the convenience of the siblings with spouses and children. Phone calls or text messages go unanswered because motherhood and wifely shit get in the way. 

That is independence, too. 

My other single friends and I agree that we all have full lives, despite societal beliefs that we are "less than" or incomplete. The myth that we have time on our hands to take on extra responsibilities at work or the flexibility to conform to everyone else's schedules is just that—a myth. And although it probably isn't intentional, friendship ghosting hurts because it feels as though our value is contingent on our relationship and child-bearing status.

We have careers and households that we run on our own. There is no one else we can tap when we have dead squirrels in our kitchens. We do it ourselves. Our fulfilling lives include art museums and mowing the lawn, pedicures and scary medical news delivered in doctor offices. They include gourmet recipes we shop for and cook and lonely Saturday nights.

That is independence, too.

Marriage and motherhood are rich, life-affirming experiences. They can also be overwhelming, scary and lonely. Our experiences as singletons really aren't as different as many believe them to be. Both are rewarding. Both are difficult. One is not less than the other.

I think independence is really about having the right to choose how we craft our lives. When we can applaud, support and love each other's choices, life becomes fuller.

We just might make it after all.

 

 

 If you'd like to read more, you can check out Tracy's profile on Medium by clicking HERE!