My Spinster Prize!!!

Sure, being a single 30 year old virgin woman has its hardships, but it's not all bad. Going to your little sister's wedding as a lonely, dried up pathetic bridesmaid is not the total nightmare that it appears. Why? Because some of us have pushy stepmothers, God bless them! Really.

My father and his wife do very well financially. They have some real estate on Miami Beach and just built their retirement home on the beach in Brazil. But Pops believes very firmly that adult children should be independent from their parental unit. His wife on the other hand, does not. Which means he has two adult stepchildren living in his house, eating his food, using his hot tub, watching his big screen tv...

Good for them. But when I have needed some help paying for medication or something, it was like pulling teeth. I always have to go through my mother. Usually he helps only helps out when mom talks to him. Even then, sometimes he forgets to send it. And you have to call and remind him.

Now, electronics from the man is a different story. He's Santa Claus if you need something technological. Last year I called him to tell him I didn't have an Ethernet card for the internet in the boho brownstone and he went out and put one in the mail for me that day. I suppose this may be a similar type of situation...

I'm not sure what prompted him (other than his wife), but Pops has suddenly decided to be very, very generous with me. Unbelievably so. I'm almost speechless about it. If I had to guess, I'd say he's trying to even things out since he gave my sister $5,000 to pay for her wedding. As the elder spinster daughter, because I've had no wedding, I got nothing. Which is how it goes and I'm fine with that. Life isn't fair and I made my peace with that fact as a child. (Afterall, I got a car in high school but my sister didn't because of the divorce.)

Maybe because he saw me in tears after the wedding, lying on his hotel bed exhausted... and I joked that my brother and I were now the losers of the family. My brother said that if a 24 year old single man is a menace to society then a 34 year old one is an 'Old Dirty Bastard'. We laughed. Maybe he didn't think it was funny. Maybe because I was nice to his wife, we kept each other company during the temple ceremony....I may never know. But I will think of this as my spinster prize.

Monday night Pops left me a voicemail saying he and his wife decided they want to buy me a car. Could I call him back to tell him if I could afford to keep it or not. WHAT!???!!! Just like that? Out of nowhere!!! I was watching X-Men when he called. Can you imagine getting that message while standing in Times Square waiting for the bus at midnight? I still don't believe this.

Of course I can't afford to keep a car. I can't pay my bills as it is. But, I'd like to try anyway. This gives me a good excuse to jump off the teaching-exploitation train and get a real job. That's what I told him. He replied that if I sell the car they would like their money back. Because that wasn't the point. Ok. Not a problem. He said they want to make my life better.

This will change my life. I'm completely shocked. My father just bought me a $5000 car! He called me this afternoon to tell me he got a 2004 Dodge Stratus from the church. (It's a used missionary car.) So, thank you Mrs. Pops. Thank you, Sis, for having a wedding. And thank you Daddy-O!

Wow. Just wow.


This isn't MY car but it's the same type and color.

Now I have to get down to Miami to pick it up. I'd like to spend a few months down there and stay with my mother. She wants to help me take care of my health. So I need to find a sublet for my apartment. Anyone need a place to stay in New York for the summer?

Don't ever let anyone tell you it doesn't pay to stay single.

A merry return

The trip to Arizona and the wedding was torture from beginning to end. I don't think I can do justice to the horror. My return trip home on Saturday took 11.5 hours and I've never been so happy to see the Manhattan skyline. New York really felt like coming home. Sunday I had to hibernate to recover. I spent the whole day reading my flight novel, watching a movie and taking naps.

The problems were nothing that I anticipated. By the time the reception came around on Friday night, and the bridesmaids were 2 hours late (partly because the groom forgot the marriage license and delayed the morning wedding, and because everyone told me I didn't have to wear the dress to the temple so I had to change, and because we had to clean the house where we stayed and there were logistics problems involving transportation to the hair salon....) The other big horror came from my mother and sister being at each other's throats the entire time.

I took it upon myself to be the intermediary to keep them from fighting. Which meant that I got the abuse from both ends. Jill yelled at me more than once when I tried to help her. My mother didn't quite yell at me but unleashed her angry tongue--anger at my sister's disorganization. I don't even want to go into the details. I suppose the retelling could be quite the comedy of errors, but today, the wounds are still too raw.

When we got to the temple for the sealing, I was prepared to wait in the lobby by myself. I brought an 800 page book to keep me company. I wasn't prepared for the tears. Right when we arrived and I met my mother waiting with the in-laws I started crying. I felt so sad, felt I was about to lose my sister. Things would never be the same between us again. I also probably cried because it was the first time I could relax since I arrived on Wednesday night. Things got bad right away. When my sister picked me up from the airport she got mad at me for teasing her about her ghetto car. She has a Jetta but can't afford to fix the crashed bumper or cracked windshield. I was trying to lighten the mood but she lashed back at me in real anger. Her tension was palatable and she was also PMSing so things were not pretty. My mother was just as bad and my brother was really sick on top of that. So I think just sitting in the temple annex, my whole body was able to breathe for the first time and with that breath came tears.

Of course, the tears shamed me so I went to the bathroom to wash my face and pull myself together. Once everyone went in for the sealing, the tears came again. I also wasn't prepared for the parade of happy, beautiful couples all there to get married. All surrounded by their happy loving families. It was a lonely place to be. So I went to the visitor's center to get away from that. It also bothered me to see all these hot mo'men coming in wearing wedding rings. I was envious. And sad. I couldn't help wondering what all those women have that I don't.

When it was time for the sealing to be over I went back to the temple lobby to wait. My step mother was there so we chatted. She told me about the delay. So we had to wait another hour for everyone to come out. Then the obnoxious photographer (way too cheesy) wanted to take a lot of pictures. We were all told there would only be a few temple shots of the couple. I was not dressed for pictures. Jill's sister in law left in a huff because her children weren't dressed for pictures either. Finally all the guests were going to leave to get lunch and the photographer took the bride and groom for more pictures. I tried telling Jill she didn't have time for more pictures if she wanted to eat before her make-up appointment at 2. It was now 1 pm. She got angry and yelled at me to leave her alone.

She missed her make-up appointment and called me at the restaurant where I was with my father, brother, step mother, and aunt and uncle. She was having a fit because her car wouldn't move out of park and David had gone off with his friends for lunch and she was going to miss her appointment. Could I come get her and take her? What? I got peeved that a)her new hubbie had left her at the temple and b)she was calling me for help instead of him and c)she should have listened to me in the first place and d) we had one car for 6 people and we were all in the middle of lunch so what did she expect me to do? We didn't have room in the car for her and the other bridesmaid and the bridesmaid's husband. I told her to call her husband. She yelled at me for this. When she did call him he said he couldn't come get her until after he got his lunch. So it was his fault she was late but I guess he couldn't be bothered to fix it.

Then it looked like I would also be missing my hair appointment at the salon. I had no ride. Jill got her gear shift to move and was on her way. We went back to my father's hotel. I cried when we got there because I was so exhausted, and hurt, and disappointed that I would have raggedy hair. My step mother was sweet about it and said they would drive me to the salon, that I needed to look good. The other thing we had to do was get back to Jill's friend's house so I could change into the bridesmaid dress. Then we had to clean up after the 4 people who stayed there because the woman who had been out of town was coming home that night. Step mom offered to go clean while we got our hair done but the bridesmaid couple without a car or hotel room who stayed at the house told her she didn't need to because it wasn't that messy. At 5 o'clock we headed back for the house and it took 45 minutes to get there. The reception started at 6:30. We arrived close to 8 pm.

I looked great but couldn't have cared less at that point. The reception was beautifully done. We took lots of pictures. My bra showed in the neckline of the dress so I had to wear a pink pashmina the whole night which looked cheesy but whatever. I really didn't care anymore. My sister's emo friends were there and I had to sit at their table. Their conversation was really boring, full of that young person's chatter that is meant to impress and exhibit one's witty repartee but is completely vacuous.

There were no single men for me to flirt with, not that I was in any kind of mood. I got a lot of compliments from the family. My sister and her husband looked amazing. When they danced, they looked like a movie star couple. My mother kept complaining about his brown suit (very mod) and how it made him look like Napolean Dynamite and was too small (Not quite.) The suit was fitted and was sexy, very Steve McQueen-esque. Jill said he was going for a Beatles look. But mom had complained about his suit all week. I think she was kind of out of her mind with stress. Her criticisms were absurd and over the top and crazy. She and Jill got into a nasty fight on the way to the reception because she was talking trash about Jill's new in-laws (who were nothing but sweet to us). Jill got so offended she wanted my mother to let her out of the car so she could walk the rest of the way in her dress and white satin shoes on the streets of a desert city.

One good thing was that I was very much needed. That felt really nice. I knew I was helping my family and my sister. Living in NY by myself, no one needs me. In my everyday life, I don't have opportunities to contribute, so I really enjoyed the feeling that my presence mattered and did some good. People were glad I was there. I did help my sister and did calm down my mother at points and was able to help organize a bit by taking charge when no one else would.

I'm happy to be home. And I am absolutely convinced now that I never want to have a wedding. If I get married, it will be an elopement. The family will get a notice in the mail. I told my family this and they all seemed very happy with that plan.

The merry bridesmaid

Next week I fly out to Arizona for my little sister's wedding. She wanted bridesmaids even though she's getting married in the temple, so I'm going to be a bridesmaid. Since I'm not endowed I won't actually be in there for the wedding. Despite that she wants us in matching dresses for the pictures and the reception. The dress could be worse. However, it's doodoo brown because that's the trend this season.

I don't like brown. I don't wear brown. Ever. Scratch that, I bought my first brown pants I have owned in my whole life in the fall. That's when I had to buy my first batch of fat clothes. I bought them out of desperation more than anything else. Other than my fat pants, and some tweed heels I bought because I have a tweed fetish, I own nothing brown. Oh, except for the Coach clutch mom bought me a few years ago. (She failed to notice that my wardrobe excluded brown bless her heart--now I have a bag to wear with the doodoo brown dress!)

The dress is a Banana Republic which sis was sweet enough to purchase for me and mail to me. Luckily, I can still close the zipper. But I think I need some kind of girdle underwear... the dress is not flattering. It's made for shorter women with smaller chests. I hang out the v-neck front. Anyone with more than a B cup knows you can't wear V-cut necks. We're talking a V that goes all the way down between the girls. Well, I guess I'll just look like the slutty older spinster sister, in doo doo brown. That's OK.

Because I got me some s-e-x-y shoes to distract attention away from the dress. You can see the shoes above, the heels are 3.5 inches, and yes those are rhinestones. Yow. (Thanks mom!) They're not really my style, and the brown ones are matte instead of satiny. I think the shoes will save me from the dress. And at least now I know I'll look like a high-class hoochie, which makes it ok somehow. Jill wants us all to get our hair done together and then have mani-pedis. She said she wants us to pretend we are a normal happy family. I don't know why she wants to project that fantasy on us but, it's her day. It should be nice. Except.

I'm nervous about seeing all the family. Most of them I haven't seen in 10 years. Every single person out there knows what kind of horror awaits them at a family wedding: the pity (she's the older sister), the inquiry (do you have a boyfriend?), and then the encouragement (oh, you'll find a husband soon, you're so pretty!)--I heard that from my stepmother 5 years ago after I lost my lithium weight. Ugh. I always just want to scream at them: I've been busy because I'm getting a PhD! Aren't you people impressed by that at all??? No. They never are. But lose a little weight and they throw a party in your honor. (Even if they know you lost the weight because you couldn't afford to eat because you maxed out your credit cards in order move to the big city.)

But what are you going to do? Try to smile your way through it and eat lots of cake. (I do hope there is going to be good cake, chocolate that's not too sweet.) I also might try to milk the poor spinster routine, either that or try to play the glamorous big city career girl with no interest in things as parochial as marriage. ;)

Overwhelmed

Can someone please tell me that at some point life gets easier? Or at least that eventually, there are pay-offs and rewards which make the increasing difficulty more bearable? I am feeling so overwhelmed today. I'm in tears. I want to go back to bed and hide under the covers for the rest of my life. I wish I had someone to comfort me for a few hours. But I don't. This post is a whiner, so if you don't want to read it, best move on now. I don't know what else to do but type.

I'm so scared for my sister who gets married next week. I want to be happy for her, but... I wish I could see what she sees in him. She is in love with the man. Has that ever been enough? She is so stressed out she has lost weight and is dangerously thin. She has had to do everything for this wedding by herself, even getting her fiancee's suit for him. And last week he told her he wanted a Superman wedding ring. She didn't think that was funny. I'll be praying for her and for them. That's all I can do.

Grades were due this afternoon but I blew them off. They only give us 48 hours from the time of the final exam to when the grades are due. That's crappy and ridiculous. In two weeks I get my last paycheck from teaching. So now I need to find a job for the summer, which scares me. Every semester my whole life changes. It's wearying. I don't know why I keep doing this.

They should turn my phone back on shortly, I just paid for the bill. But I haven't dealt with my arrest warrant yet. I need to find a new doctor because soon I'll be completely out of the meds I've been rationing since January. The last doctor I tried to get an appointment with told me it cost $650 for the initial consultation, and $275 for each appointment after so I passed. The doctor I talked to before that was all booked up. The one who referred me to him said she didn't think she could help me, I needed something more intense. Like no doctor at all? Maybe I'll call her back.

I keep waiting for the time when things will get a little easier, and waiting and waiting. I think the secret to life is that as soon as you conquer one thing, you get thrown 10 new things to deal with. It's like the increasing difficulty in video games. As soon as one level gets mastered you move on to the next one which is much harder. But in a game, you have the satisfaction of seeing your progress. Feeling the thrill of moving forward, knowing you got better and mastered something. Life is not so well-defined. It feels more like a drowning, and the water just gets deeper and the light farther away.

We slog on and on. Because we have to keep living. And on and on and on. Watching my sister struggle to put this wedding together, and it has been treacherous, merely confirms my suspicions. That the grass on the other side may look greener, but that's only because it has more weeds, is thicker and takes so much more work to maintain. But when you can't enjoy the greenness, because you don't enjoy anything anymore, then what is the point of trying to get there? How do you keep your motivation going? What keeps you from quitting life's struggle? I really need to know.

The Cheese stands alone

Marriage feels like betrayal. We know it isn't. We're happy for them. We still love them, but we feel betrayed nonetheless. As the years tick by, we become fewer, the tribe of the single diminishes. That's as it should be.

Remember that game 'Farmer in the dell?' One by one children get chosen as the farmer takes a wife and the wife takes a cow (don't get me started on how sexist and demeaning that one is!) until one child is left alone with no one else to choose. She is the cheese and she stands alone. Even in Kindergarten that struck me as sad and significant. (Cormier's book with the same title is lovely and I highly recommend it.)

The farmer takes a wife and the cheese stands alone. It's been a year for marriages round these parts. One of my midnight chat buddies up and married a girl in Texas. The other chat buddy is engaged. My little sister is engaged. One of my best friends got married in the fall. He is my oldest friend. We grew up together in our crazy ward in southern Florida. His engagement really hit me hard.

The first summer after going to college, I remember being back in Miami in my mother's house. He came over to watch the fireworks with us for the 4th of July. We climbed up and sat on the roof to see them better. It was muggy and noisy with toads and crickets. We joked that any Mormon still single over the age of 25 had to have severe problems. (We, being the tender age of 19 knew everything.) But neither of us wanted to get married too early. We made a wager. Whoever got married first loses. The prize? The loser has to name their first child after the winner, even if the sex doesn't match. To make it even better my friend designated my middle name as the offending price of his failure. His first name was bad enough already.

A decade has passed and we've only seen each other 3 times since then. I went to see him at BYU and he came to see me in New York. But we have kept in touch over the phone. Usually our calls came in the middle of the night and had to do with some romantic crisis. We consoled each other through countless relationship disasters. One of my roommates said she always knew when I was talking to him because I got so loud and laughed so much.

He showed me what it means to have a man love you, truly and unconditionally. The one man in my life whom I have trusted the most. Everyone thought we would get married. We might have if we didn't live on opposite sides of the country. I have a few stories about the two of us, but not for tonight. Tonight is about the cheese.

Last August he called to tell me he bought a ring for his girlfriend. After hearing this I had to shut myself away and cry, because it meant he was leaving. I would lose him. Our friendship would change if it even survived. And there was something else too. As long as he was still single with me then maybe I wasn't such a loser. I knew what a great guy he was and if he was still single... He once suggested we be each other's back-ups, that we should get married if we couldn't find anyone else. I scoffed him away but the words were said. I would lose that too.

And it is so terribly selfish. I am happy for him. But was sad for me. Singletons know how selfish such sentiments are. We grow expert at hiding the infantile reactions. We smile at the ceremonies and buy the best presents we can afford. And congratulate them with real jubilation. But that doesn't make it feel any better when a loved one leaves us for matrimony. It's very confusing to be so happy for them and so sad at the same time. Maybe this is what a parent feels when a child leaves home or marries?

The other side of this trauma looks like pettiness but really isn't, it's the pathos of love. Because the one they leave us for is never good enough. Who is this girl he married? He hasn't known her long enough! What has she done to deserve him? Then there is my sister who also got engaged last year. Her fiancee is definitely not good enough. He made her cry! A lot. He hasn't finished any education that he started and the ring he bought her was too small. But my sister doesn't mind, so who am I to say?

I am the cheese. I think she deserves at least a half carat. But I stand alone.

Our family dynamics will change drastically after she marries. She's younger but will be given authority over me because of her married status. It's silly and Victorian but only married people are real grown-ups. That will be obnoxious but not as bad as the other changes. Christmas will never be the same. We'll probably never sleep in the bunkbeds whispering in mom's guest room, fighting over the cats and complaining about our mother. My sister won't call anymore for advice on men and dating. And she better not ever call me again because he made her cry!

It makes me sad. I lose my little sister. She goes to join a club I don't belong to. My partner in commiseration graduates to better pastures. Of course I'm not really losing her. I haven't lost my friend either. But something is lost because everything changes after marriage.

Please don't forget your lonely cheese, and forgive our selfish sadness. We are truly happy for you. But let us cry for ourselves a little, unlike you, we don't have anyone to 'comfort' us at night.