ArcaMax

Years ago, during my single-mom-and-widow phase, fear was very much the biggest part of my emotional baggage. A whole family of what-ifs would wake me in the middle of the night and start droning their litany of fear. What if my son never again has a father? What if I get sick and can't care for him? What if that nice man I just met doesn't call again? What if he seems interested but doesn't like the way I've arranged my life? What if my parents start thinking I'm an old maid? These were bad enough, but the scariest question of all sat on my shoulders every waking hour and stubbornly refused to budge: What if I never again get married?!

Over time, those sleepless nights yielded to somewhat brighter mornings. And in the early hours of one of them, I somehow found the courage to wrestle terror to the mat and see the reality of my life. Somehow, beneath my little-girl terror I discovered a (shaky but resolute) willingness to accept reality, my single-mom status, and do all I could to make a good life for our small family. Funny thing, after I decided to stop running from that epiphany and faced my major fear -- that I might never marry again -- its hold on me for the most part was drained. My paralysis left me. I was able to see the reality and possibilities of the present situation and felt freer to build a life because I had stopped cringing from the What-ifs and decided to live As-if I'd always be single. (Care to read that again?)

That choice, which I'm suggesting you make, is designed for the long haul. But it won't keep you unmarried one moment longer than you choose. In fact, the expansion and involvement built into it could actually catapult you out of the single world sooner than later. ... Love seems to have a better chance of survival in a life made livable before its arrival! I didn't know it at the time, but instinctively I was putting into place the cornerstones of the As-if life: appropriate and secure housing, financial planning, satisfying career, enriching relationships. I remember the fun of choosing. It felt good to be making these decisions, and somehow all of it worked out.

And in the future, when and if you decide to share your independence and form a love partnership, you'll be able to bring much of your As-if life into the new phase. When I first met Morris, the man who adopted Scott and was my husband for many years until he died two years ago, he saw me as a wife who needed only a husband to complete the home life. He loved the fact that my tiny kingdom, the household he had walked into, was in order and running smoothly. So many of the women he had been meeting were just camping out, using paper plates and flea-market furniture, waiting for their knight to come and make their "real" lives begin.

My knight preferred a home that needed him only for the emotional fulfillment he brought. He appreciated that I was building a career and not sitting and waiting to be rescued. (In our marriage, he appreciated my undependence: balancing my checkbook, asking good questions of a bank officer, ability to read our lease.) The basics and the principles developed during my As-if phase came with me into wifehood.

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