Dear Reader,

Yes, I know it is Saturday, but I've just been turning some things over in my mind and felt the need to blog, so forgive me for throwing an extra one in this week.  

Total calories consumed today:  1581
Total calories burned today:  0 (Scholarship Day plus nap plus making dinner for friend)

Breakfast:   Egg, toast, margarine, coffee, milk

Lunch:  NOTHING - rehearsing with scholarship day students through the lunch hour)

Snack:  Hummus, pretzels, OK - three chocolate chip pecan cookies - Rule of thumb:  Never skip lunch.

Dinner:  This fabulousness:

This is the mango/chickpea curry plus a lovely berries/banana combo.  Seriously, this was great food. And, I actually enjoyed making it and it didn't take that long.   So,  Mollie Katzen's "Get Cooking" actually got me cooking today.   Awesome.  

Anyway, back to blogging my feelings - which is a phrase that I kind of love right now.   I want to talk about being single.   I have recently been feeling some discontent with my single state.   Now, let's be clear here:  I have been single for 42 years.   It's clear that I can have a fantastic life and not be in a relationship.  I have proven this to myself.   But, I get rather sick of the overwrought pseudo-feminist schtick which says that you should be totally satisfied with being a strong, powerful single woman - as if your desire for love or sex or belonging (within a committed relationship) is somehow a sign of your weakness and inability to be by yourself.    I'm almost as sick of that as I am of cultural messages that you should have to always be looking for a relationship as if the relationship you have with yourself is not the MOST IMPORTANT relationship there is.   Here's what I think the situation really is:   sometimes single people are pretty content with their single status.   Sometimes, they really  want to be with a partner.   Sometimes, married people are pretty content with their married status.  Sometimes, they feel like they want to be on their own.    We are all needy.   We all desire love and belonging.  Seriously.   I would love to feel as though someone that I loved adored me - and sometimes the lack of that kind of relationship makes me doubt my overall lovableness.  There it is.  Honesty.   But, I don't think that this is a sign of weakness.   It's a sign of my humanity.  

I have a history of becoming emotionally entangled with friends (men) who are, ultimately, unavailable to me.  More honesty, dear reader.   Sorry for this - but, blogging your feelings sometimes gets this way...  And, maybe, just maybe (she says after some considerable therapy) I may be choosing this kind of entanglement to protect myself from the rejection that I fear that I would face given my body image issues.   Or, maybe it's because I have gradually "priced" myself out of the marketplace of intelligent, mature, kind men through becoming a single mother by choice, living in a rural area, and having a ridiculous amount of education...

Here is what is clear to me right now at this moment:   I am worthy of love and belonging within a committed relationship.   I do not have to be in a relationship to be WORTHY of that love and belonging.  Being in a relationship that does not allow me to fully participate and share and give and receive love is not for me.   I am going to resist the urge to feel embarrassed that I desire that kind of relationship.   I am going to resist the urge to feel as though that kind of relationship will automatically make my issues with self-image and self-esteem go away.   I am going to sit with my discomfort and discontent at my singleness until I live into some answers.   I am not going to push this discomfort and discontent away by making poor decisions about my eating.  

OK, enough of this special edition.  I have to say that I do actually feel quite a bit better having typed this all out.   Thanks for reading!