Single

During this month associated with Black History and also love, many of us are still observing February 14 as “Singles Awareness Day.” In a workshop just over a year ago I asked the participants what “single” meant to them. The answers were: loser, alone, lonely and other similar words and phrases. I don’t think this is uncommon. I bought a book once titled: If I’m So Great, Why Am I Still Single? Even though more and more of us are staying single longer or becoming single again, there is still often a negative connotation to that word.

I have written before about Dean Ornish’s book Love & Survival and the role that social connection plays in our health and well-being. This post also noted that while the rise of social media has connected us with more people, the connections are not as deep or meaningful as they are face to face. Recently, I have had the opportunity to revise my thinking on this issue somewhat as I have formed a significant connection with someone who lives on another continent. While we only talk every few weeks by Skype, we have become quite close, and discovered we have a great deal in common in the way we view the world.

Social connection, and indeed love, can take many forms, and though more and more of us are choosing to live on our own, that doesn’t mean we lack community.

In fact, 50% of American adults are single and 31 million (1 in 7) of us live alone, according to the book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. People who live alone make up 28 percent of all U.S. households, making them more common even that those containing a nuclear family. This book suggests that while more of us live alone, we also tend to be more socially engaged outside the home than those with families.

There are even some activists such as Bella DePaulo, PhD, writing about how singles are “stereotyped, stigmatized and ignored, and still live happily ever after.” Her book Singled Out details the ways in which singles are discriminated against in our society (the single supplement on many trips and special event pricing for couples being two examples), the stereotypes we face and the fact that we are often labeled as selfish. She suggests that “family values” have been bastardized to leave out the vast majority of us who are raising kids as single parents, living alone or even part of same sex couples. The graphic indicates the extent of the tax discrimination singles face. I recently noticed this myself as I really scrutinized how much of my salary I never see with my 25% tax rate. It is staggering.

I believe singles have also stigmatized themselves, feeling, as the book title in the first paragraph suggests, that something must be wrong with us or we would indeed be coupled. For single cancer survivors, that stigma can be doubly or triply painful as infertility issues, scars and other body image issues, and the specter of illness and fear of recurrence all combine to make us wonder who will possibly love us NOW? We believe our past illness makes us somehow unworthy or undeserving of love, and sometimes wallow in self-pity, which does actually make us less desirable.

The truth is that all of us are whole and complete and worthy of love no matter what we have dealt with in our past. We all have something to offer, and a beautiful spirit to share with others, even if we are missing a breast, ovaries, a testicle or have physical and emotional scars from the experience of life and illness. It is truly only our own limitations that hold us back, and keep us from sharing the love in our hearts.

A Course in Miracles states that there are only two ways to be in the world – living in fear, or living in love. We are often afraid of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and share our love because we fear it won’t be returned or we will appear foolish. We hold back for fear the other person doesn’t feel the same way, or might not react the way we want them to. I am learning that the latter doesn’t matter nearly as much as I have thought in the past, and that no matter what, there is never anything wrong with sharing the way you feel with another person. It is indeed all that really matters.

We have all heard that love is the most important thing in life, and for those of us who don’t have romantic love at the moment, we have often made it mean that we are somehow lacking THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. It’s not true. We all have love in some form, and while most of us long to be loved by that one special person, it doesn’t diminish the love “that actually is all around us,” to paraphrase a favorite movie (Love Actually).

People in my life regularly say, “I love you,” to me. This is indeed a miracle, because it was only when I could allow myself to hear it and receive it that it began to happen with more frequency. At the same time, it is the most natural thing in the world to tell the people we love how we feel about them, and be so thrilled to hear it in return. What could possibly be bad about saying, “I love you?”

Who can you say “I love you” to?

What keeps you from feeling worthy of having love in your life?

What do you love the most about you?

Love in a Bag

Every year, I volunteer for a local Denver service called Project Valentine. On or around Valentine’s Day, a team of drivers fans out across the metro area to deliver Valentine’s goodie bags to chemo patients – 600 this year. The annual project was founded by Colleen Anderson, an ovarian cancer patient – like me – who had her first chemo treatment on Valentine’s Day 2001. Though Colleen succumbed to her cancer in 2007, her project lives on, and brings smiles to cancer patients each February.

When you have a needle in your arm or a port on your chest and you’re attached to an IV bag dripping poisonous chemicals into your body for several hours, it’s amazing how little it takes to bring a smile to your face. I would revel in the friends who came to sit with me during treatment, take-out lunch delivered to my chemo chair, the hand-knit hats and scarves made by volunteers, and even the cheesy song accompanied by balloons performed by the staff for each patient’s last treatment.

Of course, it’s great to deliver goodie bags, see the smiles on patient’s faces, receive the hugs and thank yous, but so many people work hard year-round to make this project possible. Fundraising, seeking product donations, craft days, stuffing, sorting and picking up the bags for delivery all have to get done as well. There are countless volunteers who organize and work hard behind the scenes with little thanks or recognition. That is why I’m taking the opportunity of my column to thank them for all that they do to make this program possible. I am hoping their work will inspire you to do something great in your own community.

The Obamas have done a great job of encouraging service on Martin Luther King Day, as so many past presidents have also highlighted service as one of the best contributions American’s can make. Jimmy Carter has played a large role in the work of Habitat for Humanity. George Bush Sr. emphasized the Thousand Points of Light, which inspired the foundation of the same name, now merged with the Hands On Network. Bill Clinton founded the Clinton Global Initiative, whose mission is to encourage investment, grow the economy and create jobs through private-public partnership.

Martin Luther King said, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.” There is something each of us can do to brighten someone’s day, and God knows there is so much to be done. You don’t have to be president to do something great. Look at Colleen. From founding your own non-profit, to volunteering with one in your community or just writing a check to a cause you support, you can serve in whatever way is best for you. Charities are really suffering in this economy, and anything you can give will be gratefully received. Out of work? How about donating some of your now abundant free time to a good cause. Jim Pancero said, “Doing something for nothing is better than doing nothing for nothing.”

I used to make it a point to send valentines to all of my single friends. V-Day, or “Singles Awareness Day” if you prefer, is tough on those without partners. Imagine how tough it is to be single AND have cancer. Yikes! That’s why one of my goals this year is to expand Project Valentine to send goody bags to single cancer patients around the country. I’m not quite sure yet how I’ll pull this off, but I plan to partner with some great organizations that are already doing good work such as Chemo Angels, I’m Too Young For This and Imerman Angels. If you have ideas about how to identify single cancer patients or make this project work, please share them with me, or feel free to share ideas you have for a project of your own. Thanks for what you do to make your community a better place.