Be Prepared
Eat. Work. Sleep. Repeat. That’s basically the cycle that we as humans have adopted as the norm. It’s required for us to work 8 hours out of a 24-hour day, we are encouraged to get 8 hours of sleep and usually, we run around trying to accomplish tasks, such as cooking, cleaning and socializing in the remaining 8 hours of our day. On top of that, we have societal and cultural beliefs that we either consciously or subconsciously adopt. For instance, at a young age, I wholeheartedly believed I would be married by 25. Because of common health risks of geriatric pregnancies, I wanted to have my first kid by 27. If you’re new to this blog, let me just tell you, NONE of that happened. I am as single as single can be. However, instead of feeling the angst that is popularized in television shows and books or of the angst of hearing and feeling a biological ticking clock, I couldn’t be happier.
Why, you may ask?
Because I have a more time to prepare.
You may ask, Kayla, what are you preparing for?
The next chapter in my life. (Cue Scar’s “Be Prepared”)
See, the world, in one way or another, makes us believe that by high school, we should have our first relationship. It encourages us to date, sleep with and have relationships with as many people as possible until you meet the one. Date the one for a few years, get married and have kids shortly after that. It’s expected that life after that becomes a whirlwind until the kids leave the house to start their own lives, and then you and your significant other become empty nesters with the ability to do as you please since by this point, you either are or will be retired. I want you to know that getting married, having children and embracing the family and retired life is beautiful, but what normally those of us who have tried and failed at this rendition of life experience is depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and a lot of other negative emotions.
I realized that instead of being upset because I am not someone’s wife yet, I can be a wife to myself.
Kayla, what does that mean?
It’s simple really. Think of the perfect life you want to have with your significant other? My vision of married life is shared responsibility of housework, frequent trips, frequent dates, healthy communication, and budgeting successfully among other things. What I am painfully learning is that everything I listed and want out of marriage is a learned behavior. It’s a learned behavior to cook multiple times a week. It’s a learned behavior to maintain a consistent cleaning schedule. It's DEFINITELY a learned behavior to create and stick to a budget. So, instead of waiting for my husband to learn how to do all these things, why can’t I do these things for myself?
I can start requiring myself to cook multiple meals a week. I can require myself to work out, stick to a budget and plan dates and trips for myself.
As I begin to adopt this philosophy, I’m learning more about me. I’m learning more about the things I want to accomplish, more about the things I want to try, learn more about the things that make me “tic.” I’m falling in love with myself, so much so, that I’m not sure I want to share myself with anyone else other than Jesus right now. Eventually, I will, but right now, I want to be a little bit more selfish with me. If you knew me 10 years ago, I was singing a very different tune. I was constantly upset because I didn’t have a relationship and feared I would be 30 before I married. (I’ll be 30 in April 2023.)
The change of heart is simple. The more time you spend with God, in developing yourself and in healing yourself, the less time you have worrying about when Mr. or Mrs. Right will come. Moreover, from what I’ve read and heard about marriage, doing this helps in relationships too!
Pastor Touré said that one of the key things you need before finding your soulmate is wholeness. You should strive to be as whole as you possibly can because when you’re whole you have more to talk to someone about. As I look back at myself 10 years ago, I was very boring. My life consisted of school, work and that was pretty much it. Half of the things I would say I liked to do like reading and writing novels was either sporadic or something I hadn’t done for months or years. If I’m being honest, I think I was waiting on a boyfriend to blend my life with. I was trying to gel my life with his and we could grow together. At the time that sounded like a good idea, but on the opposite side, that sounds horrible. I can’t imagine talking to someone without no interests or no motivation to act on these interests and trying to date them. I would imagine I would either get bored or it would get old fast. Therefore, be interesting! Whether its dissecting character and story arcs of your favorite anime, learning to play an instrument, learning a new skill or volunteering, find something that you’re passionate about and that you actually do.
Therefore, my call-to-action for all singles is to use this period, however long it may be, as a preparation period. Let’s shut out the noise of when we should be married/have kids/etc. Instead, let’s start preparing for ourselves for our future significant others by being that spouse to ourselves. Develop a deeper relationship with God. Go to therapy. Budget. Exercise. Cook. Clean.
Proverbs 24:27 (NLT) says: “Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house.”
In this context, let’s think of marriage as the house. Before you build a house, you want a strong foundation. The foundation will be both you and your significant other individually. If one or both of you are not whole or prepared, marriage can be pretty shaky. Don’t believe me? Interview your favorite old married couples or watch marriage interviews. I’m not saying it’s impossible to make the marriage work, it’s just more work on top of the consistent work that is required to make a marriage work.
Need more inspiration to use your single season as preparation? Read Proverbs 31:10-31. That’s the definition of a bad chick. However, I refuse to believe sis learned all her traits when she got married. She definitely studied and learned some, if not most, of her traits prior to her marriage.
God wants to maximize us in every season of our lives and He can’t maximize us if we’re always worried about what culture and society has to say about us being single. Let’s do as God says and plan and prepare.
