Today’s Up Close:Living Single post comes from Courtney, who enjoys long walks on the beach, sunsets, picnic lunches, holding hands in the rain, but hates being set up when the qualifications of the male in question are that he is single, still breathing, and LDS–so let’s just not go there. She received her B.A. from Utah Valley University and her M.A. from Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland and now works with the Mormon Chapter of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy. While Relief Society is definitely her favorite place to be, Courtney is very much enjoying her teaching calling in the Young Women organization where she is trying to teach a healthy balance of live your life and prepare to be married in the temple. She blogs at A Life Under Construction.

You’ve read the books and seen the films. You’ve sat with your friends and watched, re-watched, and watched again as Colin Firth emerges from that lake. You’ve laughed at the wit, the silliness, the truth, and the improbability. Then you have closed the book or finished the movie with a sigh. You know, though I haven’t mentioned a title or her name, of whom I am speaking, Jane Austen.

Recently, I have noticed my own uneasiness with a few of the characters portrayed by Austen (and others).  It is a discomfort that I have never before felt, and that has nothing to do with the “happily-ever-afters” that inevitably belong to certain characters.  Perhaps  it is the fact that I’ve finally passed one of those birthdays - one of those where upon a switch is flipped, resulting in a real difference of feeling.  It is the spinster role that has me now watching with unease.

In my perusal of these characters, I’ve begun to notice that there are certain qualities inherent in the proper spinster role:

 1. Must have a funny run that is employed with slight hysterics.

2. Has a voice that is not terribly pleasant and which gets higher when excited.

3. Is highly excitable.

4. Is silly (or dull) and has little sense or reason.

This was not the character that I envisioned myself playing.  At the very least, I thought I would have Emma Thompson’s Elinor character as a fall-back.  Now I’m not even sure I have that and I find myself asking: could it be that after all this time Jane Austen has failed me? Not by her promises of a happy marital ending but in her portrayals of what I, by definition, have become – a spinster.

 Of course, my reasonable side (which I still claim to have) points out that relying on any fiction writer—even Jane Austen—as my point of reference for how my life would turn out is completely ridiculous. Yet, there has been very little in my life that has prepared me for this role. The Young Women organization drilled so thoroughly into me that I would (soon) meet a nice returned missionary and marry in the temple that I was at a bit of a loss when this didn’t happen. Most notably, I began second guessing and stutter stepping through school. Do I take the path that might prove useful if I should marry and need to work? Do I choose instead something I feel passionate about? Dare I think about graduate school or will that make me “too smart?”  How silly the questions seem to me now and how I wish I had navigated them better when I was younger.

“Graduating” into a family ward hasn’t exactly offered any greater help in navigating the role of a single adult. Whether it was the priesthood leader who asked me if I  wondered if there was something the matter with me or the women who so kindly let me know that she knew I would be called into the nursery because that is where they put all the women who can’t get married, there has been a lot of pain and anguish.

Not long ago, I had a mini crisis on the issue and for one night the pressure felt too heavy to bear and so when I knelt in prayer I simply said, “I can’t pray tonight. I will be better tomorrow.” I did, however, still reach for my scriptures thinking I would read just two verses.  I could do that much. I opened my scriptures and read 2 Nephi 2: 1-2 and then I cried.  I cried not because the pain had suddenly lifted (it hadn’t) and not because of the promise conveyed in what I had read.  I cried because I knew my Heavenly Father was aware of my struggles.  A couple of weeks prior to this incident, I was reading in Alma when I decided to start over in Nephi.  From there I was unwittingly pushed to read on or slowed to read just half a chapter all because, even then, my Heavenly Father knew exactly where I would need to be. I felt in awe of the orchestration that went into making sure that for that one night I would be okay.

 Most of the time I am just fine.  Most of the time I can revel in the things that I have done and seen.  Most of the time I can recognize that just because my path is different than another’s, it doesn’t mean that I have strayed. But when all of that is just not enough, He is there.

 (Still, would you mind letting me know if I begin to develop a funny run?)

Related posts:

  1. Knowing Father
  2. True confessions
  3. Remembering Dad


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