thebitterbabe

never married, over forty, a little bitter

the final chapter(s)

I started this blog almost two years ago at the age of 42. I had just begun to grieve my childlessness and the realization that, while I might marry, it would not be the youthful marriage of my dreams.

Working my grief out through writing has been enormously helpful to me and, hopefully, to my readers. I realize that, with over 1,000 entries, it’s almost impossible at this point to start at the beginning of the blog and read it through. I am therefore in the process of putting it into a readable form through print or ebook options.

Part I is coming soon. It’s proved too big an undertaking to produce the entire blog in one book, but I might be able to squeeze it into three parts.

I currently feel at peace with my singleness and childlessness, despite the occasional flare of worry or grief. My problems now are both old and new: how to make a living, how to build community, and so on. As children age and marriages break up, these issues will no longer be the sole province of those of us who never married or had children.

I’m currently putting my energies into creating the book forms of this blog, but I’ll be back with an epilogue. Hopefully I’ll be reporting on a good, or at least decent, job, and I’ll be settled in this city for the long haul.

straight no chaser

Was I so late joining the game that I needed to go straight to babies and worry about finding a good marriage later? Or should I be looking for the “good enough” guy now?

Over the next couple of years, I went on a seemingly endless number of dates. I had lots of mini-relationships. In some, I became wildly infatuated and got dumped. In others, I plodded along with nice guys I could barely stand to kiss. Maybe one of those Match men would have turned out to be a wonderful husband, and I would now be settled in the suburbs enjoying the comfort of mom clogs and Saturday mornings with Claire at Costco. But I never fell in love with any of them. I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be a mother someday, but I didn’t want it badly enough to overlook my heart.

–Sarah Elizabeth Richards, Motherhood, Rescheduled, p. 17