Singled Out

If you had Archer does a book report on your October 2021 Bingo card you need to go get a life and stop putting potential Archer posts on your Bingo.

But either way when you read 200 Books a year you occasionally need to do a book report so prepare yourselves.

I occasionally go on a little kick of reading literature about how MEN ARE GARBAGE AND WE DON'T NEED THE-ahem-about how women can discover their own strength and power when the male voice is subdued somewhat.

I also recently read the book Leftover in China about the women there who are "leftover" and do not get married because of a variety of reasons that usually boil down to that they became successful and then none of the men were man enough to actually talk to them.

Like I said, a little kick.

I enjoyed Singled Out more than Leftover in China because of it's historical significance and the way the stories were told but both stand to illustrate the points that I have occasionally made on this blog and that lots of people all over the world make all the time: men are garba-ahem-not necessarily necessary to the happiness and fulfillment of women and they are definitely not necessary for the success of women.

Singled Out is about the women of the lost generation: the women who were left when millions of men were killed and maimed in WWI and how they continued their lives when they didn't get married even though at the time marriage was basically the only option for women. It discusses how they began to work and build businesses of their own-some even using their status as a single woman to rent themselves out as a companion or aunt.

We need to go back to when people needed chaperones for things so I can escort rich Upper East Side girls to theater and stuff for free and get paid for my time. That just feels like a good career move for me.

At the end of the book many of these women who lived as so called 'spinsters' 'crones' tried to summarize their lives and what they felt they had missed out on. On being a spinster one of them said "it's not a bad life. There's a lot to be said for it. The important thing is to enjoy and be enthusiastic. And take everything that comes."

Take everything that comes. Words to live by. Words to dream by.

These women had no idea until afterwards how dire their position was-if their goal was to get married. Only later were the real numbers published that showed there was a less than 50% chance of getting married. I don't know what my odds are, I have yet to go to Vegas and put them down. But, like these women, I have to take what comes even if the numbers turn out to be against me.

Numbers are meaningless. It's taking everything that gives life meaning.

Believing in G-D is taking everything in a sense. There is no one on earth who can give their troubles back to G-D but believing in G-D contextualizes my struggles and gives me power to accept them. To take everything with a smile.

If this is what the women who were left after the most devastating war of all time could say, after seeing the Depression that was to come and the next war which would make the first war look like a warm bath, and after the threat of nuclear disaster colored their adult lives than who am I to bemoan the global pandemic and economic crisis that seem to plague my generation?

Later they'll publish numbers and tell me if I ever had a chance to start with. But now I am taking it all. That's what my old crone friends from WWI told me to do and you should never argue with an old British woman.