Journal Excerpts from a Single Girl

This week I have been full of questions. Sporadically at work, home, while reading, even playing tennis, I have paused and asked myself: Am I headed in the right direction? What kind of woman will I be in twenty years if I continue as I am? How shall I make my life meaningful and important now? Is anything I do of worth to others or even to myself? How can I serve the Lord as he would have me? I have as yet found no answers, but I know there are others who wonder about these things as much as I do. I am, therefore, going to make a conscientious effort this week to itemize the keys to successful living as I see them. I want a record to remind me that “man’s chief purpose is to live, not to exist.”

My ruminations about my status in life have continued. I have been filling my journal with entries that mirror the true thoughts and feelings I have. Today came the realization that simply waiting for the white knight à la white charger is not the solution. In the preparation for marriage, spinning time into a web of uneasy, sighed frustrations has no place. It is a fallacy to assume that happiness begins the day some man thunders across the horizon. Certainly there is a sense of completion, a blossoming always evident in girls truly in love. It is this very glow that makes falling in love so attractive to those of us who are still single. I know, however, that true love takes a lot of work and sacrifice, and that happiness is for now not later. My personal challenge, then, is not to wait successfully but to live richly, fully, joyfully. I shall not wait for the right person; I shall be the right person.

My greatest concern is bitterness. That most uncomely, unfeminine snare drives women to the depths of despair, through Bunyan’s Slough of Despond. I have seen it as a hard glint in the eye and a certain curtness of voice. I tremble to think about it because I know it creeps up in the guise of healthy personal criticism or justified envy, all the while smothering the tender softness inbred in women. It is such an easy, all-too-common trap to slide into. All it takes is thinking, “I am as talented, bright, and good-looking as so-and-so. Why is she married, and why am I not?” Progressively it eats into the heart until in the height of bitter frenzy one might even say, “What is wrong with these men? Don’t they know quality when they see it?” The only defense I have found is day to day, not week to week, communion with my Heavenly Father coupled with efforts to reach out to others with love.

I, who seem to daily grow more in love with the greens, golds, grays of my Father in heaven’s creations, know nature to be a great source of peace and strength. When discouraged or lonely I often find a quiet spot and contemplate the wondrous glories of the world. Away from the hustle and bustle and close to the heart of life, the horizon sharpens. I again see hope and readjust my tattered perspective. I raise my voice with King David’s:

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? …” (Ps. 8:3–4, Ps. 9.)

The poet said, “Have a love affair with life,” and so I do. I giggle with pleasure while hoisting my neighbor’s young children into our apricot tree. I glow as I pedal my bicycle beside those of the old couple on the corner. I whistle low with delight leaf-kicking my way through an autumn drizzle. I blink unbelieving at the fairyland of beauty as the first snow laces the street light. Slowly learning that it is not always the major productions of life that bring the golden memories, I have come to treasure the day to day miracles and to live in awe of the daily spectacles. Echoing in my mind is Moroni’s haunting question, “Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life. …”

I have a feeling that when Brigham Young said, “We believe that women are useful, not only to sweep houses … they should stand behind the counter, study law … to enlarge their sphere of usefulness for the benefit of society at large. In following these things they but answer the design of their creation,” he didn’t mean we should fill time heartlessly. We shouldn’t study just because there is nothing else to do. I believe his meaning was that we should learn to throw ourselves into our tasks with a vigor that makes time precious and of great personal worth. While the greatest joys in a woman’s life come from husband and family, there is much else that can bring happiness on the way. Even preparation for the laundry, and baking, and diaper changing that are so much a part of marriage have great value. If we could learn to make this moment memorable, how much more pleasant would be the daily rites, how much happier we would be.

Ho, ho! I am discovering new things. For example, to help alleviate the tedium of graduate term papers I have been listening to opera while preparing them. It has been soothing, delightful, and educational. I have also invented a new game. It is called the twenty-minute game, and although I play it primarily on my breaks at work, I think I will try it out at other times as well. The object is to see how much I can get done during any given twenty minutes—how much crocheting, writing of thank-you notes, or reading. I have entered some new worlds.

Later: Adventures. I dearly love adventures! Whenever I find myself getting stale or just feeling downright blah, I decide I must have an adventure. My best are those that test the powers of observation. I pick a street I know well and find something new there. I have never yet been disappointed.

Everything I read, everything I see, every lovely person I meet convinces me that the real worth of a woman is “to be estimated by the real goodness of her heart, the greatness of her soul, and the purity … of her character.” Oh, to be pure in heart. Sometimes I ache from desire to be so cleansed, always sensing so acutely at those moments my many sins. I continue to grow in gratitude for purity as evidenced in the life of our Savior, for the gift of repentance through his atonement.

A friend of mine recently asked me on one of those wistful nights girls sometimes have to write her a poem about true love between man and woman as the ultimate miracle. I said I would try, and I did, often. It just wouldn’t work, however, and I couldn’t figure out why. Finally, I just gave up the project and even forgot about it until over two weeks later when in a flash I understood why I had been unable to complete her poem. It was simply that love between sweethearts is not the ultimate miracle. On the contrary, it is entirely dependent and subservient to that love that is the apex—the unconditional love of our Heavenly Father for us as his children. Of all the miracles of life, I sensed in that silent, tacit moment of revelation that this was the greatest, the most magnificent, that which makes all of life worthwhile.