Friday, September 24, 2010

Re-Defining Single

I always defined “single” as not being tied down to a person, the freedom to talk to as many or as few men as I wanted to. As Katt Williams put it in one of his standups, being able to go out to the club and scream: “Single and ready to m***f**ing mingle!”

And while that is part of the picture, I realize that this definition is so limiting. To define “single” from this perspective, still makes my state of being dependent on external factors, (i.e. If I am ever going to find a man? Is he going to call?) instead of focusing on improving the internal, which is what I want this process to be about.

So how does one make it internal? Often I read articles aimed at single women suggesting that we live up the single life by taking ourselves out or pamper ourselves. These are all great things to implement but there are only so many times you can take yourself to the movies to the spa or out to dinner before you realize that this is only scratching the surface.

Often books and articles targeted at single woman only discuss how to attract, get and keep a man. How to act when you are with him, so you won’t drive him away. But I have yet to see any mainstream books on how to love yourself or love being alone.

Everyone has to define their “single-dom” for themselves but in my case I want it to be about fully appreciating this moment of alone and not seeing it as a punishment because I can’t get relationships right. I want it to be a little more about me and making my dreams come true and less about finding the “right man”. Finding him is inevitable with patience, and if there is nothing I can do to speed up the process the best thing I can do is let go.

Also on my list of to-dos :
• Being at peace with nights alone.
• Having the courage to be honest to myself about what I really want out of life.
• Getting around to all of those things I have been putting off (like writing).
• Enjoying life in general!

The only way to do it right, is to fully go in. Evaluate yourself, how you got here, what you want to accomplish while you are here. Start from scratch, removing negative thoughts and habits that no longer work and adding more positive and life affirming ones.

How will you define your single life?

I'm Baaack!

Okay, so I I haven't blogged in a while. There has been so much going on in my life in the past few months from moving, to working, to starting a new semester of school and various other events that have left my pen and keyboard idle.

And the real truth is I met someone and then I got comfortable and lazy. I haven't been challenging myself to write daily or even weekly like I should. It's easy to get in that comfort zone of spending time with someone you really like and letting all your extracurricular activities and even some of your important stuff fall to the wayside.

But this is a dangerous path to start out on, as a writer and a single woman. It's easy to lose your focus of your goals in both scenarios. And once you lose focus it becomes increasingly harder to get back on track.

As a writer, I never want to stop writing. As a single woman I never want to lose sight of my purpose and my personal goals and only focus on the relationship with the man.

So I'm baaack! More ready to write and more focused than ever. I'm changing the name of this blog (more on that later) to reflect my new attitude on the single life.

Here's to new beginnings.