How It Feels To Be Single Me

Modeled after Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels To Be Colored Me"

A single woman is how I signed all my escrow papers. My feminist friend went off—I bet they don’t make men sign a single man! I didn’t know. But I had taken this title on, turned it around in my mind, it was almost now like a commercial jingle in my head. A single woman. It seemed like the title of my next one-woman show.

I bought my property on my own. People asked if my parents helped…no, I asked, and they said no. The entitled part of me was very upset, since I feel like they have the money, or so I’m told by my mom’s best friend. But something inside of me fired up and said, “Fine then, I’ll do it on my own.” And I did.

My mother will never understand what it means to be a single woman in her thirties. She was married in her mid-twenties in the sixties, but being raised in the fifties, she is very traditional with her hats and high heels at church on Sundays. She worked as a R.N. growing up and although I always saw her as strong, I realized she would never be strong enough to leave my father and live on her own.

Although I see how hard it is to do everything on your own. Moving, legal paperwork, painting, putting in floors, fixing the clog in the sink, fixing the fan in the refrigerator, getting the fireplace to work when there is no other heat…sometimes I really get tired of being single me. Sometimes I really wish there was someone else to pick up the slack. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to do it all.

But I’m also glad I don’t have to put up with anyone else. When I moved to New York City, both my father and my boyfriend at the time offered to help me move. I declined their assistance. I didn’t want to deal with my boyfriend’s anger or my father’s annoyance and knew I could do it on my own with more peace of mind. So there I was in the middle of Manhattan on 47th Street between 8th and 9th unloading the Uhaul in the middle of the night.

When I moved to Los Angeles a few years later, I still did it on my own. This time I just hired movers. Easier to pay for the muscle of the man, as opposed to being bound by it. I landed at a man’s, but I knew I needed to quickly move out because I wasn’t going to last more than a few days.

When I was sixteen, my high school English teacher said she could see me having a baby on my own—that I was a strong, independent woman. She meant it as a compliment, but it haunts me even today. It feels lonely to be single me. There is an underlying fear constantly present that this is it. I haven’t found a partner yet and how am I going to have the baby I so desperately want on my own?

I had to fill out a person to contact in case of emergency, and I really felt like there was no one reliable I could put. The person you put is supposed to have power of attorney over you, but really, at my age, your parents no longer have that power. Since my parents live in Michigan, if I am knocked unconscious and need someone to be at the hospital with me, they are not the ones to call anyway. Who is my person to contact in case of emergency? My best friend doesn’t have a cell phone, so he may not get the message until hours later. And when you move, you really learn who your real friends are.

Howard used to say to enjoy my time as single me. He said sometimes he wished he were single. Sometimes, after hanging out with couples I am glad to be single me. But sometimes, I see what they have and I am envious me.

The archaic meaning of single is “not accompanied or supported by others; alone.” “People who are unmarried or not involved in a stable sexual relationship.” There is this negative connotation that being single has. As singles, we are singled out. My married friend did not invite me to Thanksgiving one year, because they wanted another couple at the dinner table. How it feels to be single me is the perception by others and by myself that I have somehow failed the partnering ritual so many are in. It feels sad to be single me, but at the same time, I know the sad is replaced by mad when I am partnered me.

My mother would talk about single people—how they were selfish and narcissistic. I cannot judge her decisions for staying in a relationship I would never be in. But I feel its effects on single me. I think about my Aunt, who just lost her husband to cancer, and I know her single self is very different than how it feels to be single me. My Aunt and Uncle seemed to have had a very happy marriage. Seeing that, makes me feel like someday, I may be able to move from single me to more of me.