"Y'all are too independent these days..."

Alright friends, where do I begin.

Let me start by saying that lately my life has been surrounded by discussions of singleness and marriage, in large part because that's what our sermon series at church has been about for the past few weeks. And while I've loved every talk I've heard, especially Jennifer Lewis', what always gets me is the assumption that if you're single, you hate it. Every talk is prefaced with the Biblical truth that singleness is a gift and so you shouldn't wallow in self-pity, but instead enjoy it. I completely agree with that and believe it, but I always sit through the first 15 minutes of those sermons wondering why they're approached from the assumption that most people are unhappy that way because what ends up happening is that we spend half the sermon about why you shouldn't be unhappy and the next half telling you why you should be happy. But we never quite get to really living the single life and what that looks like. And, to be fair, many women are actively waiting for that relationship status to change and seek that encouragement as they wait. Many women have a God-given desire to be married and have children at this point in their lives. I totally appreciate those people and I admire them unbelievably. And sometimes I feel a little silly because I don't happen to be one of those people...yet. The desire will probably come. But for today, it would take one heck of a guy to make me give up my single life.

This morning I had plans to meet my dear sweet friend Cristina at Starbucks at 8:00, a meeting that has become a Friday standard and an amazing time of laughter and sharing about what God has been up to in our lives. I was so looking forward to it this morning and couldn't wait to jump into conversation. When I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot, I stepped out of the car to a fairly loud hissing sound. I rolled my eyes knowing that while it was a possibility that it was just something around me, or from someone else's car, it was much more likely that it was in fact somehow coming from my car. For those of you that don't know, my vehicle has become Satan's playground. See this post. I got out, circled around the car and realized that my passenger side rear tire was letting out air...and not slowly. In fact as I was standing there looking at it, the tire was flattening before my very eyes. I couldn't find a hole on it anywhere and it didn't really matter if I could have because it was going out at such a rapid rate that I wouldn't have been able to fix it anyway. I had already texted Charlotte once to tell her that I had a dream that I had been attacked by a wolf and since we know that when I have no clue what to do about something I just ask her, I went ahead and texted her again to tell her that my tire was flattening out right before my eyes. She told me she knew how to change a tire, but I assumed that I didn't have a spare so I said I would just call AAA and have them tow it to a shop.

The ridiculousness of standing and watching my tire lose air had pretty much exhausted me on wanting to deal with it at all so I decided to just go in and get something to drink and figure out what to do once Cristina got there. But, I did go ahead and check and found out that in fact I did have a spare tire in my trunk. I ordered my drink and plopped down at a table near the counter. As I'm sitting there a random guy plops down at the chair across from me. I looked up, thinking that he must have already laid claim to that table and said, "I'm sorry sir, I didn't realize someone was sitting here." He laughed and said very sweetly, "Oh I wasn't! I just thought I'd sit here and wait for my drink as well. Is that okay?"

"Um, sure!"

So we sat and waited together, not saying anything, just waiting, so I went ahead and texted Char and told her I had a spare. Long story short, she said she'd come up and work on it as soon as she could. My next phone call was to my boss to let her know that I was going to be late if I was going to make it at all. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: "Hey, I'm going to be late today. I have a flat tire."
My boss: "Well are you gonna get it fixed?"
Me: "Um, yeah, I was planning on it. I suppose I don't really have any choice."
My boss: "Guurrrll...this is why you need a man."
Me: (chuckling) "Well thank you for that encouragement friend. I don't know what I'd do without you. But let me remind you that it's not like I have much control over that."
My boss: (Laughing) "Girl, I'm just sayin'."
Me: "Okay, you're done now. I'll talk to you later."

Cristina and I went ahead with our conversation, drinking coffee and laughing about how married people assume that single people have any control at all over their relationship status. Before too long Char walked through the door and came and asked me for my keys. I offered to go help (not that I could do anything) and she sweetly told me to just stay where I was, doing what I was doing. She walked out the door and I looked at Cristina and said, "See...this is why I don't need a man. A man would have walked in here and said, 'Get out here. You need to know how to do this so you can do it yourself next time.' But your girlfriends just come in, get you taken care of and let you enjoy your morning." We laughed and after a couple minutes decided that despite our helplessness we could at least move our conversation outside so Charlotte wouldn't be by herself.

We picked up our bags and our overpriced cups of caffeinated goodness and went and plopped down outside by my car, chatting and watching Char, flat on her back in the parking lot. A number of people walked by and almost every one of them offered to help. God bless Texas. But then, a middle-aged man in a plaid pageboy cap walked by.

"You girls need any help?"

I said, "No sir, we've got it all taken care of." (Yes, I was sitting on my rear sipping my non-fat, no whip, hazelnut mocha.)

"Are you sure?"

"Uh, yes sir."

He chuckled, shook his head, started to walk away, stopped, looked back at me and said, "Y'all are way too independent these days."

...

EXCUSE ME?

Cristina and I pretty much lost it and Char just kept jacking up the car.

It's such and interesting thing, gender roles in society these days. Clearly men are still crying out to help women. They're created to. They're made to rescue, to fix, to serve. I love that! I truly do. But when you don't have a boyfriend or a husband to jump at your every my-car-is-falling-apart-the-drain-is-dripping type need, you just learn how to get by on your own. And yes I acknowledge that I squashed that dude's manhood first thing in the morning and I did it while I was sitting on my butt sipping a mocha. Fair enough. There was a part of me that felt bad. But there was another part of me that realized I've got someone I trust with my life, much less my car, fixing my tire. Why on earth would I ask her to stop and turn it over to a stranger who I refuse to assume can fix it properly just because he's a man. Where exactly is the balance between embracing the femininity that God gave us and being able to survive when your guy just hasn't arrived?

Our friend went in and got his warm beverage of choice and walked out just in time to hear another very friendly gentleman say, "You ladies need any help with that?"

"No sir, we're doing just fine."

Mr. Pageboy caught the eye of the other one and they chuckled and shook their heads. I don't blame them. I know what they were thinking. But the fact of the matter is, that tire got changed in about 20 minutes, I drove on a spare to go tutor my middle schoolers that I see every Friday, and then I drove to the shop and got a new tire. And so yes, for better or worse, too independent or not, us single ladies, really are doing just fine.