I used to pity the single women in their 30s and 40s.

When I was deep in fundamentalism, I was attending a cult in New York City. My parents had met there and were married. We’d moved by the time I was four, but the leader had found me on LinkedIn while I was attending college in California. I moved across the country to go back. I was 21, 22, finishing up my education at Brooklyn College. Every Sunday, without fail, I’d go to church at around 1 pm and stay until about 4 to 4:30 pm. The leader was often late. Anyone else who was late, or wearing clothes that weren’t acceptable enough, or baring tattoos or piercings, or wearing any sort of perfume or cologne, would be subject to criticism, even directly from the pulpit. After the service, people would split to fellowship at various homes. Those in the inner circle would go to the leader’s home, or to the home of one of the elders or deacons. Anyone not selected would just go home and try to avoid going to the grocery store or a restaurant, as it was unacceptable to make other people work on the Sabbath.

There were two women in particular who attended who had been single for a very long time. One didn’t really date – her focus was on her dance nonprofit that I’d attended two decades before, starting at three years old. The other one kept finding issues with any guy who showed interest in her. This one was too short. That one didn’t have a good enough career. It seemed like the leader was whispering in her ear about it all. She put her life on hold to find a husband, supported by her parents’ brownstone and little jobs here and there.

She was 30-something, and I was in my early 20s, and I was a threat, and she let me know it. She was dismissive and uninterested in getting to know me as a person, and in return, I pitied her for being so old and unwanted.

We were both wrong, both victims of a system, a culture, and a religion that saw no value in either of us aside from our fertility and marriageability. She would leave the cult eventually and get married.

I would leave it after only a year or two and move to Colorado, where I would get married, then divorced. I had waited for marriage even then, at age 27, and I had felt relief. Finally, life could begin and I would have value.

A year and a half later, I divorced him, moving back to the east coast, feeling like a failure. It took me another few years to heal from that. It took my sister’s death in 2018 for me to leave my faith.

I didn’t start dating until I was 32, realizing that it wasn’t me that was the problem in finding a partner. I could find dates. People wanted to be around me and get to know me. I had previously encountered only limited options being in a fundamentalist cult – surrounded by hoards of beautiful, intelligent women and only a handful of worm-like men. Of course there would be fabricated competition. 

But being older and dating in any real capacity had its challenges. I hadn’t learned the lessons I should have learned at 23, so I had a steep learning curve ten years later. I’d barely know someone for a few months, maybe even weeks, and they’d want me to change something about myself they didn’t like.

This one was only six months separated from his wife of ten years and in love with someone else he couldn’t be with. That one only one month into a separation and still in love with her. This one had me apologizing for him losing his temper when I said I had to go after texting him all day then talking on the phone for three hours. That one ghosted me after two weeks, then again another two weeks after that after I thought we’d worked through it, then texted me a year later to apologize. This one didn’t text me happy birthday after I’d reminded him it was my birthday. That one didn’t like that I had clothes on my bathroom floor.

I’d feel all of the feelings and feel bad for feeling those feelings when they made the other person uncomfortable, and then I’d realize my feelings were protecting me, and while I didn’t need to blast them outward, I did need to pay attention to them. 

This one told me that I shouldn’t take a moral stand on the types of clothes I wore and if I put on make up. It was only practical to meet the world’s expectations, he very patiently explained.

And that was the tipping point. I’d met the world’s expectations for decades, and I’d lost myself along the way. 

At 35, I’m realizing that compromise with someone you know well, or hearing criticism from someone who genuinely cares for you and wants the best for you, is different than catering to the demands of someone you’ve only recently met. I’m realizing that communication is crucial and can’t be avoided. That some people won’t be happy, no matter how much you change and adjust. Character, values, and morals are the most important part to me, especially as I get more tattoos and I dress myself comfortably for my work and my life. 

If I’m going to put on a dress or put on some makeup, it’ll be because I want to, not because someone who has known me for two weeks expects it. 

This year is the year I start to lose my relevance in the world. I’ve hit the tipping point of acceptability and socially allocated attractiveness, although I’m gonna be objectively attractive for quite a few more years. Our society just isn’t kind to women of a certain age. 

And that’s okay. I can’t change that. I can’t change that by chasing youth or wearing certain clothes or putting on certain kinds of makeup. I can’t change anything about how people perceive me inside a very narrow set guideline of acceptability. 

I don’t like who I am in those confines. I like who I am outside of them. I’m a more kind person, less judgemental, more safe, less scared. 

I want to be the sort of person who sees someone else’s soul, regardless of what they’re wearing and where they’re eating dinner. And I want others to see mine. 

It’s a challenge to the system that can make people uncomfortable, but it’s where I find my genuine self, where I feel authentic, where I feel happy. Where the social rules don’t matter.

And maybe it is harder to exist here, but it was pretty damn hard to exist inside all of the rapidly changing rules, too. It wasn’t any easier on that side. 

Staying here is where I get know who I am while I heal from all of the trauma.

I’ll pay the price. 

For happiness, I’ll pay that price. For confidence, I’ll pay that price. 

For growth and becoming the best version of myself, I’ll pay that price.
Even if it means being alone, I’ll pay that price.

But I won’t be alone. Because the secret bonus there is finding people who share my values and morals, who want to be around who I am, and who I want to be around. It just takes a little bit longer.

2021 was an extremely challenging year. It was one of the hardest years I’ve ever been through. But I survived, alone. 

I continued to grow my business and my reputation, relying on referrals. 

I found a safe place to live after seven months of uncertainty, which included moving eight times in about two and a half months.

I asked out a stranger as a confidence dare to myself.

I went alone to a stand up open mic (A 2022 goal is performing at an open mic).

I ended dating opportunities and I deleted and blocked numbers when safety and boundaries were a concern.

I spent time with friends and opened myself up to new social opportunities.

I got vaccinated and boosted.

I allowed myself to accept my mistakes, and to take steps to make them right if needed.

I learned to like myself again.

I started establishing more boundaries.

I modeled for four photography sessions and learned how to pose along the way.

I’m 35. I’m single. I’m doing just fine.