Kimberly Emerson

My mother, like many other women, quit working when she had kids.  My two brothers and I had Mom home full-time until my younger brother hit kindergarten.  (With a red plastic hammer, no doubt.  He had two, and he hit all the rest of us with them.)  Years later, she told me that she enjoyed it, except for the fact that everyone assumed as a stay-at-home mom, she had her entire day free.  She constantly found herself volunteered for things because “you’re home all day, you have time.”  Knowing my fair share of stay-at-home moms and dads these days, I’ve come to see that their days are anything but free.  Aside of those small people who need supervision, there is laundry to do, a house to clean, groceries to buy, older children to chauffeur and dinner that isn’t going to make itself.  (Okay, some days the pizza man cometh, but you can’t indulge in that too often if you’re trying to teach your children healthy eating habits.)  Yet somehow, thirty years on (okay, thirty-five, but that’s as high as I’ll go) the myth still endures that they spend all their time watching soap operas and eating ice cream.  I feel bad for them, and I try my best to give them space, knowing the busy lives that they lead.  It was nice to know, though, that there was one problem I wouldn’t have to deal with, being single, having no kids and working full-time.

Imagine my surprise, then, to find myself somehow stranded in the same boat, out there on the Sea of Guilt & Obligation.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, or if it’s always been like this and I just woke up to the fact, but a goodly percentage of the world labors under the delusion that I have too much time on my hands. People assume that because I have no husband or child to get home to, that I must have no reason to go home.  Whether they take it for granted that I make a lot more money than I really do and can thus afford someone to cook and clean for me, or whether they figure that my house operates on auto-pilot, I can’t be sure.  Either way, though, it comes down to the same thing.  I have extra hours in the day, and I desperately need help filling them.  Do I want to volunteer at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning?  I don’t have to worry about taking kids anywhere, so I have time, right?  Do I want to drive to an event on the other side of town on a weeknight?  I don’t have a husband who will be upset if I’m not home, so it should be no problem, yes?

While it irritates me when people make this assumption, I realized the other day that I actually have to thank them.  They have, in their years of working to fill my hours, helped me to figure out some of the truly wonderful things about being single.  Before anyone celebrates my new awareness, though, I should probably warn you: this realization helps no one but me.  Well, me and possibly other people looking for an excuse to be selfish.

You see, I’ve discovered that the blessings of singlehood can benefit me or others, but usually not both.

The number one lovely thing about life on my own is flexibility.  Contrary to people’s assumptions, I have plenty to do.  No, I don’t have to do the laundry or the cooking for a family of five.  Of course, if I don’t do the laundry and cooking for myself, no one else will.  My cat has never even ordered me takeout.  (Honestly, that’s probably my fault for not leaving the credit card where she can find it.)  Fact remains, though, I get to decide when these things are going to get done.  If I feel like eating dinner at 9:00pm, there’s no one else around to care.  If I want to let the dishes sit for three days, I can.  I just have to deal with the fact that when I finally get around to doing them, there will be three days’ worth of dishes to wash.  (…And the food will be caked on, and the kitchen will smell.  Excuse me, I’m going to do the dishes now.)

The number two lovely thing (now that the dishes are done) is time by myself to recharge.    I am at heart an introvert, and in order for my brain to function properly, it needs a certain amount of time in relative isolation.  One of the highlights of my week is Saturday morning, when I take a four- or five-mile walk and stop in at my favorite coffee shop for a latte and a scone.  I listen to a book on tape, sometimes write, always people watch, and smile at babies and dogs out with their people.  Somehow, when I come home, the world makes more sense than it did when I left.  Whether I’m walking lazily from shady spot to shady spot or striding purposefully, my hoodie zipped up to guard against a marine layer that has yet to burn off, I feel somehow gloriously indulgent.

Don’t get me wrong – I have self-imposed routines so that flexibility won’t descend to aimlessness, and I fill my life with friends and family to avoid too much time alone.  But this past weekend, after having agreed to go visit someone on an upcoming Saturday, I became suddenly and intensely aware of what I would be giving up to do it.  It would be an afternoon that I would not spend at my computer, sitting down with no idea where the next chapter of my novel would go only to find three hours later that it somehow got where it needed to be.  It would be two hours on the freeway, some of it sure to be in stop-and-go traffic, something I bloody well can’t stand.   You’re being selfish, I told myself.  There’s five of them in the family, there’s one of you.  It’s so much easier for you to go to them.

And then the thought struck me – that’s the trade off.  I don’t have a family of my own, but I have flexibility and time to myself.  An even trade?  Doesn’t matter.  Whether or not I would have preferred them, they are God’s gifts to me.  As gifts, they are mine to share, but here’s the thing…they are also mine to keep, if that’s what I decide to do.

When I first had the thought, it sounded appallingly selfish.  But, as Mrs. Garrett, that lovely eternal redhead from The Facts of Life, once said, “I think that word gets a bad rap.  What’s wrong with doing something for yourself once in a while?”  (Oh, the volume of wisdom to be gained from 1980s television.)

I am single.  If I don’t do things for myself, there is no one else here to do them for me.  If sometimes I feel like using my flexibility to have a Saturday where I don’t set foot in the car, I can.  Doing that may mean giving up the chance to visit others who are unable or unwilling to drive to see me.  Sometimes, that may be the choice I have to make, because let’s face it: if I do it out of obligation, it stops being a gift, to me or anyone else.

The parallel finally hit me.  When someone asks me to do something on a Saturday morning, it doesn’t mean the empty hours of my life will finally have a purpose, it means giving up something I look forward to all week long.  It’s like me asking one of my friends to go out on the only night of the week her whole family is home for dinner.  There are reasons to miss it, but not many.  (Death, massive bleeding, and maybe second-row tickets to Wicked.)

Sometimes, it’s okay if I say no to people.  If they don’t understand, well, there’s no law that says people have to understand everything I do.

Having had this realization, I thought about my Saturday appointment.  I will still keep it, but I did make certain to schedule it for the afternoon.  The morning belongs to me, L’Epicerie, and random dogs and babies.

God gave me gifts, and sometimes, they’re supposed to be gifts to me.

Kimberly is allowed to enjoy her flexibility, as long as she understands that it doesn’t apply to her cat.

Tags: Facts of Life, flexibility, selfishness, stay at home parents, time management, traffic