Today I am going to my friend Melanie's wedding, which amuses me very much, for it was not so very long ago that she and I and Lily sat bewailing our Single state. Well, they were bewailing. I started writing my Seraphic Singles blog in November 2006, so it did not become me to wail. But possibly I am giving myself too much credit. Anyway, the upshot of all the wails of "Will we ever find Mr. Right?" is that Lily married first, aged 26, and then I remarried, aged 38, and today Melanie is getting married, aged 30.
Lily set quite the fad for being married in May by Father Quequelchose. One, two, three. Lily the first year, me the second, and Melanie the third. If anyone had told me years ago my wedding would have been before Melanie's, I would have laughed. But there is no telling with Providence.
The reason why I am writing this is because so many of you Searching Singles are in the same place Melanie and Lily and I were four years ago. We were all in graduate studies. We were all popular but without real boyfriends. Lily and Melanie were (and are) very pretty and dressed with great attention to style. I was, at any rate, striking and had a flair of my own. We liked to go out dancing or stay in and bake brownies. And none of us had any idea that within four years we'd all marry our Mr. Right. None.
We hoped we would, of course. But the not-knowing drove us nuts, just as it drives many of you nuts today. But we kept on going to Mass, and doing our studies, and debating the efficacy of The Rules, and having parties, and generally having as good a time as prudence and circumstances allowed.
Lily met her man at church. Melanie met her man at Lily's wedding. I met my man over my blog. You'd have to know each of us to really understand how fitting each meeting was. Lily, the woman of prayer. Melanie, the lover of parties. Seraphic, the inveterate writer. Our ordinary, typical activities brought us where we wanted to be.
So I write all this today in the hopes that it will inspire you Searching Singles to keep on being you and to live in increasing hope--and not increasing bitterness--that Providence will use your ordinary days and ways to bring you to the vocational plan He has for you.
7 comments:
AAaaaww....thank you! This is such an encouraging post!! I needed that today. So hopefully my future and studies will lead to my special someone some day. :)
I'm trying very hard to be patient and not to bemoan my state of "never-been-on-a-date and I'm 21"...and it's sort of working. Most of the time.
Hello Seraphic,
I'm a new fan of your blog. I happened to discover it just recently, but I like it so much that I already ordered you book by Internet :)
I'm finishing school and looking forward to starting a working career. I try to focus on that rather than on thinking when and where I'll meet Mr Right, or if I'll ever meet him… That's why I find this particular story of you and your friends so inspiring. It makes me feel that as long as I keep chasing my dreams and doing my best to follow the path that He has for me, I won't need to run after happiness because it will naturally come to me.
Thanks so much for sharing the story!
Thank you Aura85! I hope you enjoy my book.
Anna, you would be amazed to know how young everybody over 25 thinks 21 is! You have lots of time. Don't worry about dates--just get out there and make lots of female friends and male acquaintances. Don't get isolated!
We can learn many social lessons and graces from dating, but dating has a lot of headaches and temptations, too. My friends and I argue as to whether dating is a good thing in itself or not. My feeling is that people should just get out there and find people interesting in themselves, and not think of them primarily as potential lifemates or confidantes.
Hi Seraphic!
I have a question for you -- how do those "Auntie Seraphic" questions get to you? Do people submit them as comments and you just don't publish them? Or is there contact info somewhere on your blog that I'm missing?
Thanks!
Both! But I don't know where my contact info has run away to. My email address is seraphicsingles@yahoo.com.
Anna: I wish that, at age 21, I had never been on a date... because my experiences from age 18 until age 21 were so horrible that they messed me up for a long, long time. We're talking men who cheated on me with former fiancees, tried to force me into things physically (and tried very hard and made me feel like garbage about myself when I wouldn't), dumped me when I wouldn't sleep with them, constantly told me how unattractive I am, chucked me for my then-best-friend, and other things that I just don't feel comfortable mentioning in public. In fact, the nicest person I dated until I was 21 was someone who dumped me when my sister was in the ICU.
Now, on a happier note, I have several friends who are joyfully married to the first person they dated and kissed. They didn't meet these people at age 14; they were in their late 20s. There's something different - and a bit deeper - about their marriages that's really wonderful to see. (That doesn't change the fact that they all did a lot of their own crying in their teens and early 20s... they didn't know what awaited them just a few years down the road!)
Oh, and another thing: men who are in their mid- and late-twenties have calmed down and matured. This means a lot.
So I'm not going to say "Don't date" (and even if I did, you should listen to Auntie Seraphic, not my cynical self!); just don't worry about not dating.
I am now in the position you describe--mid-twenties, surrounded by amazing female friends who for some bizarre reason are completely ignored by the male of the species, trying to be seraphic about my own singlehood but not always succeeding. And this post was very encouraging. So, thank you.
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