When it first came out I read Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and absolutely loved it.   I will definitely read her new book Committed: A skeptic makes peace with marriage (to be released January 2010). As much as I loved Eat Pray Love, it left me wondering about all the lovely women who have done brilliantly career-wise and parenting-wise; Who have braved the waters of womanhood, and worked courageously, no matter what, to make a life, yet haven’t connected with love. Or, they did find love and it walked out the door on the arm of a younger woman. Or they lived happily in matrimony for  years and then lost their husband to cancer and since have faced life independently. How would such a book end for these women if their ending doesn’t culminate with the entrance of a loving adoring ready to commit man?

Of course love can take its time to find its way into our lives. It was 13 years between the passing of my daughter’s father and reconnecting with the love of my life. Over the years, there were dates and such but not love – not the kind of love that sustains you through the years of fatigue and fear, and the arduous climb of creating your dream and the discomfort of falling into and out of discovering yourself. 

I know fabulous women who have been without love for a very long time.  How do we champion them on through the days of running a race with only one shoe on and the weight of being soul provider, mother, and dreamweaver strapped to their backs? If there was an ending of a story that rivals the calibre of Gilbert’s memoir yet doesn’t sign off with love, what would it be? Perhaps it would read that single-hood is the time to do the necessary preparation for love. I don’t mean advertising yourself on eHarmony or going to single social events as preparation, I mean doing the inner work that will move you towards wholeness. Although Gilbert’s ending was love with a man, I think her journey beautifully portrays the inner work it takes to move closer to wholeness.

If love is what you ultimately seek, how devoted are you to tending to the garden in which you expect the love to grow? This time, while you are single, before love arrives is the time to unearth the dead tree stumps. It is the time to revitalize the soil with enriching nutrients. It is the time to strengthen the roots – the pillars of the garden so that a strong, mature, lasting love becomes possible.

Being single is the opportunity we are given to ready ourselves for the perfect love we seek.  Use the opportunity wisely, it may not come again. 

On living up to yourself,

Carrie