Hello there :D I was putting off posting until I figured out something brilliant to say...but I give up (a dim glow will have to do).
I'm Charis, and I've been brought here by Sharon and Kay both. I've known some of you for a long time (either in person or online), and some of you I met at Sharon's wedding, and everyone else I look forward to getting acquainted with!
Let's see...I live in Texas, where I have an uninteresting office job that doesn't make any use of my degree in English (when people ask 'what do you do?' I tell them that I am paid to sit at a desk and make small movements with my hand. And this is completely true). I'm almost 25 (good grief), and I am single. I have always been single--if at any point someone showed some interest in me, I was (and continue to be) entirely oblivious. For a long time this really bothered me. I am over it now, and I'm grateful to be able to say that and mean it. It helps that I've never felt a lasting attraction towards anyone, I suppose (unless fictional men count).
I don't know that I was raised in a cone of silence concerning sexuality--my mom was a nurse, so she tended to be matter-of-fact about bodily functions, and the subject of purity was quite a big thing in our homeschooling community, but the discussion stopped short of what I needed. There isn't a lot of discussion about how to deal with sexuality as a single woman (and especially a woman prepared for the possibility of being single for a long time). After all, being a spinster doesn't make a person asexual.
There was an assumption (or seemed to me to be an assumption) in the communities and churches that I grew up in that marriage is the goal for young women. The lesson being drummed into girls in youth group was always that they needed to save themselves for their future husband, which assumes that there will BE a future husband. It's taken me seven years to realize how wrong this is, because what if there is no future husband? Does that negate the value of chastity? I don't think so, because a woman's chastity is something between her and God, not between her and a hypothetical man. This was an important thing for me to realize--that being single doesn't mean there is something wrong with me, and that being single isn't a problem. It's just where God has be right now, and he may keep me here, or he may move me to another stage of life that involves a relationship, but either way my focus should be on serving God where I am, as I am. (Understanding this and putting it into practice are very different).
In the interest of full disclosure (now that I have made a big deal about being single and how it is totally fine), sometime after March I have made a deal with myself to give online dating an official try. I wrote about it on my LJ, but that post is friends-locked so I'll replicate a bit of it here: "The point is that I think I'm perfectly capable of being a content, satisfied, and productive individual as a single woman, and I don't buy into the idea that I need another person to be complete, or to serve God, or to be truly happy, but I also don't want to not try something just because I have preconditioned myself to fail* or because I'm afraid or rejection or blah blah blah excuses blah blah. I also don't want to be so wrapped up in my own I-don't-need-a-relationship speech that I fail to realize that while I might not need something (or think I need it) I may still benefit from it and I should be open to possibilities. And if I'm meant to be single, then at the end of this experiment I will still be single, and still be content about it. And if I'm meant to be in a relationship and God has been waiting for me to open my heart to the idea, then I'll have the chance to find out."
...I'm in danger of getting ranty, so I'll just move along. Other things about me that aren't long ramblings! I like to make things, be it with knitting or sewing or painting or baking, and as part of that I like to write. I love to read, of course, and daydream about extravagant parties and organized craft rooms.
no subject
I'm Charis, and I've been brought here by Sharon and Kay both. I've known some of you for a long time (either in person or online), and some of you I met at Sharon's wedding, and everyone else I look forward to getting acquainted with!
Let's see...I live in Texas, where I have an uninteresting office job that doesn't make any use of my degree in English (when people ask 'what do you do?' I tell them that I am paid to sit at a desk and make small movements with my hand. And this is completely true). I'm almost 25 (good grief), and I am single. I have always been single--if at any point someone showed some interest in me, I was (and continue to be) entirely oblivious. For a long time this really bothered me. I am over it now, and I'm grateful to be able to say that and mean it. It helps that I've never felt a lasting attraction towards anyone, I suppose (unless fictional men count).
I don't know that I was raised in a cone of silence concerning sexuality--my mom was a nurse, so she tended to be matter-of-fact about bodily functions, and the subject of purity was quite a big thing in our homeschooling community, but the discussion stopped short of what I needed. There isn't a lot of discussion about how to deal with sexuality as a single woman (and especially a woman prepared for the possibility of being single for a long time). After all, being a spinster doesn't make a person asexual.
There was an assumption (or seemed to me to be an assumption) in the communities and churches that I grew up in that marriage is the goal for young women. The lesson being drummed into girls in youth group was always that they needed to save themselves for their future husband, which assumes that there will BE a future husband. It's taken me seven years to realize how wrong this is, because what if there is no future husband? Does that negate the value of chastity? I don't think so, because a woman's chastity is something between her and God, not between her and a hypothetical man. This was an important thing for me to realize--that being single doesn't mean there is something wrong with me, and that being single isn't a problem. It's just where God has be right now, and he may keep me here, or he may move me to another stage of life that involves a relationship, but either way my focus should be on serving God where I am, as I am. (Understanding this and putting it into practice are very different).
In the interest of full disclosure (now that I have made a big deal about being single and how it is totally fine), sometime after March I have made a deal with myself to give online dating an official try. I wrote about it on my LJ, but that post is friends-locked so I'll replicate a bit of it here: "The point is that I think I'm perfectly capable of being a content, satisfied, and productive individual as a single woman, and I don't buy into the idea that I need another person to be complete, or to serve God, or to be truly happy, but I also don't want to not try something just because I have preconditioned myself to fail* or because I'm afraid or rejection or blah blah blah excuses blah blah. I also don't want to be so wrapped up in my own I-don't-need-a-relationship speech that I fail to realize that while I might not need something (or think I need it) I may still benefit from it and I should be open to possibilities. And if I'm meant to be single, then at the end of this experiment I will still be single, and still be content about it. And if I'm meant to be in a relationship and God has been waiting for me to open my heart to the idea, then I'll have the chance to find out."
...I'm in danger of getting ranty, so I'll just move along. Other things about me that aren't long ramblings! I like to make things, be it with knitting or sewing or painting or baking, and as part of that I like to write. I love to read, of course, and daydream about extravagant parties and organized craft rooms.