Sand Boxed In

I was single all through my twenties and for the first half of my thirties.  Folks used to ask me if I was gay, as if that would somehow solve my problem of being single, like it was psoriasis.  “I have a lesbian friend,” they would say.  “I bet she’s perfect for me,” I would answer, “but I’m not gay.”  I was just waiting for the right smart, funny, kind man to come along.  I realized too late that I missed the first round of marriage by not marrying my college boyfriend—who became a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle—or any of the Eurojerks I dated while backpacking through Europe.  I had no regrets although that Eurojerk phase lasted much longer than it should have, but marrying Costis, Isaac, JeanPierre or Kort was the right thing not to do. 

During my late twenties-- as my weekends filled up with friends’ weddings, I continued to date all the musician/filmmaker/carpenters who were left.  They were all named Dave and I dated many of them.  That’s not completely true-- I dated all of them.  At least all of the ones named Dave.  It was about then that I began to tell people that I had skipped my first marriage and was waiting patiently for my second.  Because people seemed to notice.  It seemed to bother them that I wasn’t married.

One day I found myself sitting in the middle of a circle of chairs at the beach.  Reading and chatting in those chairs were my friends and their spouses.  Their children played in the center.  I was laying on my stomach on my towel making lazy designs in the sand with a stick.  I always enjoyed my friends’ kids as I inherently like them and was looking forward to having my own one day.  So we took turns, a four year old girl, and I, drawing faces in the sand then erasing the other one’s with the sweep of a hand.  Back and forth we did this, wordlessly for a while until finally she spoke. 

“Where is your husband?”

“I don’t have one,” I said. 

And then it hit me.  I understood that it was my job in this moment to lay the foundation for this little girl’s future as a confident single woman and productive member of society, so I made sure to keep my voice chipper so as to convey to her that she wouldn’t be any less of a woman one day if she weren’t tethered, by law, to a man.  One day she might take me to tea at Bergdorf’s to thank me for giving her the chutzpah in that seminal moment on the beach, when she was four, the moxie to go it alone and seek her fortune and happiness, knowing that if she were internally contented, that her inner radiance would dazzle all who came into contact with her and that one day she would meet a smart, funny, kind man in due time.  I continued to make designs in the sand and radiate wholeness.

“Why don’t you have a husband?” she said, and then she added, “What’s wrong with you?”

Huh, I thought.  So we’re going to play it that way, are we?  Well then you can kiss tea at Bergdorf’s goodbye.

            I leaned in close so that none of the adults could hear me, then looked into her eyes and speaking in a steady, hushed tone said, “There’s nothing wrong with me, sweetpea.  I’m just patiently waiting for your parents to get divorced so that I can marry your daddy.”  That shut her up.