An Explanation (And Another Literary Comparison)

I feel right now that I need to offer a note of explanation. You see, a lot of people are reading my blog and getting the idea that I am bitter because I am twenty-four years old and not married. While it may seem that that is the case, I need to explain right now that that is not true. I have no problem being single. It's something else that bothers me. But how do I explain it?

Ah! This is where the literary comparison comes in. Last time I compared myself with the character of Mary Bennett, who was created by Jane Austen. This time I will compare myself to a literary character named Valancy Stirling, who was created by one of my favorite authors--Lucy Maud Montgomery, who also created the character Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables). Valancy Stirling is the main character of one of Montgomery's lesser-known books, The Blue Castle. It takes place in a small town called Deerwood in 1920s Canada. The book starts out on the morning of Valancy's twenty-ninth birthday, and she wakes up feeling what I myself am often feeling. How should I put this? Well, I probably can't put it any better than Montgomery already did, so I'll just quote directly from the book:

"Valancy wakened early, in the lifeless, hopeless hour just preceding dawn. She had not slept very well. One does not sleep well, sometimes, when one is twenty-nine on the morrow, and unmarried, in a community and connection where the unmarried are simply those who have failed to get a man.

"Deerwood and the Stirlings had long since relegated Valancy to hopeless old maidenhood. But Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet--never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man.

"Ay, THERE lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn't possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever desired her."

And that is where I feel the sting. I don't mind so much being single--I'd much rather be single than be stuck in a marriage like a lot of the ones I see young people in. No, that's not what bothers me at all. There are tons of single people my age--in fact, more people my age are single than married. No, what bothers me is that, like Valancy, I've never even had a single opportunity (no pun intended) to be anything else. No man has ever been even remotely interested in me.

And THERE lies the sting. Sure there are plenty of people my age who are single, but the vast majority of them have been in a relationship, or at least had the opportunity to be in a relationship. They have at least had someone who was interested in them on some level. I've never been in a relationship, or even had the possibility of one. And that hurts.

And it's something that no one can understand unless they have lived it. And to be honest, I've never personally been acquainted with someone my age in this circumstance (except for people who had, how can I say this politely, slight mental disabilities). In fact, my friends and roommates have always said things like, "Well, you should actually be glad, because boys are just trouble anyways," or, "Well, I would actually like to be in your position since you've never had to break up with someone." Oh, you poor, poor, simple fools. My best response to this is a cliche: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." How true that is. I would gladly go through the experience of a terrible breakup, if only because it meant that at one point that other person had cared for me. I mean, even most divorced people say that if they could do the whole thing over again they would because they would want to experience that happiness they had experienced at the beginning of their relationship. Even though they weren't in love anymore, they would go through it again, even the painful breakup, to be able to experience being in love again and having someone be in love with them.

Of course I'm not sitting here bitter because no one's ever been in love with me. That in and of itself doesn't hurt, doesn't really bother me. But it does kind of hurt that no one has ever been in like with me. There lays the sting.

Oh, and on another note of explanation, I feel I should say that writing this blog is rather cathartic for me--that is, it is kind of emotionally soul-purging for me. I write a few of my innermost thoughts, and the depressed feelings that go along with them, and once I get that out of me, I do not feel depressed anymore. I'm not really sure how to explain it. By writing about being depressed, I do not actually FEEL depressed anymore. I'm afraid that people are thinking that I'm just always moping around feeling all depressed because that's kind of the way my writing is, but that's not the case. By writing it all out I can kind of purge it from my soul and be done with it. It's actually very theraputic. I know this doesn't work for everyone, but right now, it's working for me, so I'm going to keep doing it, and I won't apologize for it. And there it is.

Well, what else can I say? Valancy Stirling ended up having a happy ending after many ups and downs, so I'd much rather be a Valancy Stirling than a Mary Bennett. Of course, Valancy is under the impression that she is dying of congenital heart disease for the majority of the book due to a doctor's clerical error, and I definitely don't want to experience that. But still. Valancy created this perfect fantasy world for herself to deal emotionally with being an unwanted, hopelessly single woman living with her mother and aunt. She imagined herself marrying a Prince Charming and living happily ever after with him in a blue castle in Spain (hence the title of the book). And in the end, she ended up getting her Prince Charming and Blue Castle--they just weren't exactly the way she had always imagined them. And maybe that's what will happen to me, too.