Two Weekends in a Spinsterlicious Life

Oh, the Spinsterlicious Life.  It's a mixture of all things good and interesting in life...and delightful juxtapositions.

Weekend #1
Last weekend, I spent some time with three fab single ladies and it was just refreshing to see each of them doing their own thing, having crafted pretty nice lives for themselves.  I see this all the time so it still befuddles me when I hear people question how a single woman could be happy and pretty satisfied with her life, as is.  These girls have it going on!

Spinster # 1 is actually not a spinster because she's divorced…so I've made her an honorary spinster.  She had us all laughing as she talked about how much fun she's having renovating her new place, post-divorce.  Her last renovation --during the marriage-- was fraught with tension and stress as she and the then-hubby struggled over every last detail, trying to find a solution that satisfied them both.  Sometimes they ended up with a compromise that only half-satisfied either one of them.  This time, she's doing her place exactly the way she wants it and she loves it.

Spinster #2 has a pretty cool job in the entertainment field and regaled us with stories  about her travels and the behaviors of nutty, demanding celebrities.  She also told us about being invited, recently,  to a friend's dinner party with four other couples.  She was the only single-ista.  They decided to play a game that only couples could play.  It didn't occur to anyone that maybe this wasn't so nice.  Don't they know any other games?

Spinster #2's story reminded me of attending a wedding and being seated at the Singles table instead of being seated with my married friends (the only other people I knew at the wedding.)  The singles were all college kids who I didn't know.  I can't figure out why it didn't occur to someone that there might be a better solution.  I know; someone I mentioned this to said there's not always a place to seat one person.  I say b.s. to that.  You can add or remove another chair at any table if it comes to that.  It's your wedding; you can do what you want.

Spinster #3 quit her corporate job and started doing her own thing…and she loves it. She makes less money than she used to, but she doesn't care.  (Having a rich-ish boyfriend helps).  She has what I consider to be the perfect "arrangement".  She has a great boyfriend who accepts that she loves and wants him, but is not interested in marriage and kids.  So they live apart; they spend lots of time together traveling and doing other normal couple things, then they go home to their respective places.  I want her life.  (I exaggerate when I say "I want her life".  What I really love is her boyfriend situation.  "Hi, honey.  Bye, honey.")

Spinster #4 is me.  I just got back from the graduation ceremony of a delightful young woman I've mentored for a few years.  I'm so proud of her and get to revel in her successes…without having to raise her!  Just like the boyfriend situation, it's good to spend time with her (and him)…and then send her (and him) home!  This reminds me that one of the commenters on a post I recently wrote said to me, angrily,  "Quit whining. Being single is easy."  I guess he's right in many ways.  I like easy.

Weekend #2
This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial kick-off to summer in the U.S.  To celebrate, I invited two of my closest friends for the weekend to jumpstart the season.  In my fantasy-head, it would be just like the old days, when we were free-single-and-21.  Except we're not.  I'm still free and single, but they're married with children.

I didn't have the nerve to say "leave the kids and spouses at home", so they're all coming. Even the dogs.  I say this mostly in jest:  I really love their families...though I am a little concerned about spending that much time with that many children...some of whom are teenagers.  Actually with that many people.  Since I live alone, the thought of being surrounded --sun up to sundown-- by eight people gives me a bit of agita.  I'm sure I'll be fine, and it'll be fun...but y'all should pray for me anyway.  Hopefully I don't end up on the news:  "Lady flips out over too many weekend guests."

But this is my Spinsterlicious life.  I have a full array of friends in a variety of situations and it works just fine.  As it should.  Happy Memorial Day, everybody.  And a special thanks to the troops who protect us...allowing me to spend my time pondering small things like my weekend activities, without having to worry about big, scary things like terrorism.

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

 And if you like "Spinsterlicious" and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe "Via Email" in the box on the right. You'll receive an email when there's a new blog post. Or "Like" Spinsterlicious on Facebook. Just click the button at the top of this page. Or "Follow Me" on Twitter (button on the right). Whatever you do, don't miss a Spinsterlicious update! 

A Good Reason to Get Married (File Under "Catty Comment")

I seriously hate exercise.  All my life I've been waiting for that pill that would allow me to eat what I want, as often as I want, and sprawl on the couch as long as I want without gaining a pound or negatively impacting my health.  I think working out should be something I have to do only when I feel like it.  

For example, I used to run and I loved running.  Running is the only exercise I've ever enjoyed.  Anything else feels like work.  Then my knees stopped cooperating.  I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee a few years ago, and now my left knee seems to be demanding similar attention.

I refuse to go to the gym, so while I'm waiting for that "no more exercise" pill to be invented, I downloaded a few workout apps onto to my iPad.  I work out to them at home while I'm watching TV.  It's the closest I can get to doing nothing, without actually doing nothing.  The thing is, these apps provide a pretty good workout...if I set them to the highest level and for longer than 20 minutes. 

I was complaining about hating exercise the other day to a spinster friend and she was in full-on agreement with me.  She said, "Hating exercise is the only reason I can think of to get married.  Ever notice how women gain weight (I'm paraphrasing here) once they take on a husband?  I guess it's ok to 'give up' once you land him."  I laughed...even though I know it's not true.  Well, it's kinda true, but not true enough to be a truism. 

Unfortunately, I can think of too many women who did not gain the 'marital spread' ...but it's kind of amusing, anyway.  Plus, it didn't help that I knew she was talking about a particular married lady...the one who's married to her ex-.  This woman really did pack on the pounds soon after she got married and she used to be a fitness fanatic.  Go figure...

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

 And if you like "Spinsterlicious" and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe "Via Email" in the box on the right. You'll receive an email when there's a new blog post. Or "Like" Spinsterlicious on Facebook. Just click the button at the top of this page. Or "Follow Me" on Twitter (button on the right). Whatever you do, don't miss a Spinsterlicious update! 

(Why) Is "Spinster" A Four-Letter Word?

I am a single woman with no kids. I've been that way all my life. It's by choice, so it's a fine place to be. Eons ago, I would have been called a spinster. Or an old maid.  Old Maid sounds much too heavy, plus I'm reminded of the card game of the same name where the Old Maid is the last thing one wants to be. If you end up the Old Maid in this game, you are the loser. Some might also say this is true in real life. 

I considered bachelorette for a moment, but only for a moment. I knew that wouldn't work. Bachelorette refers to a young woman.  It has a certain lightheartedness that I like, but it also seems to carry a bit of frivolity, which really doesn't work for me anymore. 

So, nix old maid…nix bachelorette.  I'm going with spinster. It's archaic and has a certain ring to it.  I think of Jane Austen and well-dressed, polite, independent women.  Spinster is so out, it's in.  Or at least, that's my plan.  Unlike old maid, which automatically carries all kinds of baggage and negative imagery, spinster is different.  Dictionary.com defines a spinster as "a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying."   Well that certainly is me.  No problem. 

  

So when I started chronicling my life, I wanted spinster to be part of the title.  But spinster does carry with it a certain blandness.  It doesn't seem exciting or fun or lively so, though I like it, it doesn't totally describe me.  I am exciting…and fun…and lively, so I decided to jazz it up a bit.  I like the word delicious and I have used it to describe my life.  And that's how I ended up with Spinsterlicious.  Spinster +  (de)-licious.  Get it? 

And that's also how The Spinsterlicious Life was born; it's the name of my book  and my blog.  And the word spinster is used a lot in both places.

So, I was a little surprised a couple of weeks ago when more than a few Commenters to my Divorce Envy  piece on The Huffington Post  took issue with my use of the s-word, calling it "ugly" and chastising me for using it.  Huh?  

I don't know it to be an ugly word.  Is it just the whole concept of being a never-married- woman-of-a-certain-age that is ugly?  I think it is for some people, and I hope to change that.  Similar to the way young African-Americans want to re-frame the N-word, and young women are embracing the B-word, I want to reclaim and jazz up spinster.  It's not a bad state of being and shouldn't be considered a bad word.  It's what I am.  I'm Spinsterlicious, baby! 

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

 And if you like "Spinsterlicious" and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe "Via Email" in the box on the right. You'll receive an email when there's a new blog post. Or "Like" Spinsterlicious on Facebook. Just click the button at the top of this page. Or "Follow Me" on Twitter (button on the right). Whatever you do, don't miss a Spinsterlicious update! 

Mother's Day on Steroids: A Contrarian View

Over the past couple of years it’s been clear to me that holidays have become of monumental importance in the American culture. Christmas—December 25—is an entire season. When I was a kid, talk of Christmas began a week or two before the big day.  Not anymore.  A few years ago, stores began to trot out Christmas decorations on November 1, as soon as the Halloween pumpkins were put away. Last year, though, I noticed a number of stores selling Christmas wreaths right alongside Halloween masks. The Christmas season now begins in October.

And the ads to remind you to buy something, do something—usually something expensive—for Valentine’s Day begin right after New Year’s Day.  Oh, the pressure.

And now here comes Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day, a national holiday since 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson declared it so, has recently become MOTHER’S DAY!!! It, too, is superlative; it is not to be ignored. The ads started a couple of months ago. Mother’s Day is bigger than Christmas and Valentine’s Day in some ways (Number 1 being the guilt if you don’t do something spectacular to honor it).    

On this one I’m sort of on the outside looking in. I’m (by choice) not a mother, and I don’t have one (not my choice) . . . so I’m free to sort of watch from afar and ponder lightly what it all means. And interestingly, it seems that as the number of childfree-by-choice women grows, the importance of being a mother has taken on colossal status.

For most of civilization, a woman’s becoming a mother was a given. If her body could reproduce, she did . . . really whether she wanted to or not. Better birth control changed this somewhat. Women could choose when to be a mother, but most still rarely considered if they should.

But now, more and more, becoming a mother—or not—is beginning to be recognized as a choice. There are far more women in their 40s without children now than there were in past decades. In 1976, just 10 percent of all women ages 40 to 44 had no children. That percentage had doubled by 2010.

Yet as it becomes more apparent that, as wonderful as motherhood can be, being a mother is no panacea, and we as a society seem to have, collectively, decided that we must make motherhood seem like The. Best. Thing. Ever. I wish everybody could just relax.

On the one hand, some researchers are declaring that having kids is often unsatisfying—indeed, can mar one’s happiness.

• From a 2009 column by The New York Times‘s Maureen Dowd:  “‘Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,’ said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called ‘The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.’ It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.”

• From a 2010 New York magazine article by Jennifer Senior, “All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting” . . . well, the title really says it all.

And yet we are celebrating motherhood and Mother’s Day like never before. The amount consumers spend to celebrate the day continues to rise. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2012 poll, the average consumer is expected to spend $152 on Mother’s Day gifts, up from $140 last year.

And just the other day, a New York Times article, “The Baby Bump,” discusses how having a baby improves the “career” (and bank account) of countless celebrities.

Last year, I wrote a blog post about how so many people—strangers and other people I passed on the street— wished me Happy Mother’s Day. I thought this was pretty amusing; maybe I just look like I’m a mother.

And last year, people on Facebook were encouraged to “show their love” for their moms by posting a picture of her (because, what, if you don’t make a public declaration it isn’t true?). I toyed with the idea of posting my mom’s picture, then decided against it. I’m picky about which social media bandwagons I jump on, and this one just seemed, well, kinda forced to me.

Every one of the morning news shows and daytime talk shows, every single day, has a segment (or three) on all kinds of people proclaiming, repeatedly, their love, love, love for their mothers on national TV. The more excessive, the better. In the lead-up to Mother’s Day, every mother is perfect. Nobody has a shaky relationship with her mom; everyone has been blessed with a paragon of virtue and goodness.

Multiply the pressure of Valentine’s Day by, oh, 10,000. Honestly, I think all this hoopla sorta takes some of the fun out of Mother’s Day, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice if the way we celebrate this day were more organic, more personal, less full of pressure? Of course, this is easy for me to say. Having neither a child nor a mother, I can muse about this in the abstract.

Happy Mother’s Day, everybody. Really.

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

 And if you like "Spinsterlicious" and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe "Via Email" in the box on the right. You'll receive an email when there's a new blog post. Or "Like" Spinsterlicious on Facebook. Just click the button at the top of this page. Or "Follow Me" on Twitter (button on the right). Whatever you do, don't miss a Spinsterlicious update! 

How Can I Be Happily Single When I Hate Being Single?

The Spinsterlicious Life --the title of my book and blog-- is about the joys and realities of being a single woman.  Whether a woman is single by choice or by circumstance, a great life should be hers.  The time spent fretting about what you don't have (a man) would be much better spent celebrating what you do have.   That's my philosophy.  

But I know a few people who don't agree with me.  My book is about being "happily single", and they take issue with that.  As one friend said to me: "I'm not Spinsterlicious.  I don't want to learn to be happily single because I don't want to be single."  I get that; I understand that she doesn't want to be single.  What confuses me though is what she thinks the alternative is?  She's single.  She doesn't want to be, but she is.  The way I see it, she can be single and happy -or- single and unhappy.  Those really are her only two choices because the option of being married has not presented itself yet.  

I think she thinks that if she makes herself happy as a single woman then she'll never get married.  I want to say (quoting Dr Phil) "how's that workin' for ya?" 

 The reality is that "happy" is attractive.  People want to be around happy people; men do, too.  With "happy", I say you can't lose.

So, what's your take on the whole "happily single" thing?  Possible?  Self-defeating? A myth? The only way to go?

NOTE: The Spinsterlicious Life: 20 Life Lessons for Living Happily Single and Childfree-- has been published and is available here and  here, and on Amazon.

 And if you like "Spinsterlicious" and want to be notified of new posts, please subscribe "Via Email" in the box on the right. You'll receive an email when there's a new blog post. Or "Like" Spinsterlicious on Facebook. Just click the button at the top of this page. Or "Follow Me" on Twitter (button on the right). Whatever you do, don't miss a Spinsterlicious update!