Tomorrow Is Another Day

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

When I was younger, choosing to be a single and childless woman was a bit freakish to other people.

At that time, while most of my friends were excited about the idea of walking down the aisle and having children, I wasn’t. I was afraid of it. Rightly or wrongly, I saw it as a trap where I would have to sacrifice my potential for a union that would change everything and stop me from being myself.

I was honest with myself despite the messages from others that my choices were strange and that it was best for me to change.

I remember my mother’s knitted eyebrows when she looked at me sometimes and her friends who pulled me aside with pained expressions and whispered, “So, tell me why aren’t you settling down and getting married? What’s wrong?”

Once, I was lying on my back and getting my uterus examined by a doctor at the hospital, when he asked, “You single?”

I said yes, and he pointed to a cartoon on the ceiling above me of a very old woman sitting on a park bench alone with the caption: Waiting for the perfect man. Then his two eyes peeked up at me from above my groin area, and he added, “He doesn’t exist, you know, so you better get on it.”

Although I never felt marriage was right for me, I loved. I loved a lot. I also lived with a couple of men in my life and my heart stopped when some of them felt enough to propose to me. But when they asked me, a voice in my head said very clearly: it won’t last with this person. So, I didn’t do it.

At times, I felt like an extraterrestrial because everyone around me seemed to have extended family, a spouse, and children. Whenever I had to fill out medical or employment forms that asked for an emergency contact, I left it blank. I went through most of life’s milestones and struggles alone. It was my normal.

But as I approached the last chapter of my life, I hoped for something. I didn’t count on it or need it. But, when no one was looking, sometimes I’d think, wouldn’t it be great if maybe someday, a long-lasting love showed up.

With that in mind, one night, about five years ago now, I quietly spoke to my deceased parents and said something like:

I’m going to leave it up to you. If you think it’s right for me to find a life-long love, how about you put him in my path? And give me some kind of sign to let me know that he’s the one you picked?

A few months after I put in my “order” with my parents, I went to a writers’ group, and I saw a man I’d never seen before. I had a Bridget Jones moment, and I whispered under my breath, “Ding Dong.” Anyone who has seen the first Bridget Jones movie will understand.

When the session ended, I was out in the parking lot, and that man approached me and said, “I really like your writing. Would you like to exchange emails? I can read more of your work, and I can send you some of mine?”

After giving him my email address, reading his writing and talking with him, I thought he was not my kind of guy. I thought our way of seeing the world was not aligned. I didn’t want to lead him on so I told him, and we agreed to stay friends. One day, while confiding in him on the phone about a frustrating day I was having, he listened, sympathized and said, “Well, tomorrow’s another day.” It took my breath away.

My father and I had our challenges when I was growing up, but we also had a close connection. And whenever I had a tough day, he’d sigh, and with a softness in his eyes, he’d smile and say, “Well, tomorrow’s another day.”

Maybe it was a coincidence that my new friend said those words, but considering my chat with my parents earlier, I wondered if it was a sign to give this man a chance and so I did.

It hasn’t always been easy for us, but over the years, thanks to his steadfast giving, love and support, more and more, he felt like home to me.

Almost five years after the day we met, and for the first time in both our senior lives, we got engaged. And, as that trickster life would have it, two months later, my fiancé was diagnosed with cancer of the blood.

It was one of those moments when life says: This is a big choice. Are you in or out?

We got married a month later, while he was going through chemotherapy, radiation and a stem cell transplant. It's been a ride with scary dips and turns, tears, anger, exhaustion, laughter, sweetness, and constantly renewed gratitude and love. And we're getting through it together.

In the past, sometimes, when I was asked why I didn’t have a life-long partner, I’d smile and say something like, “I’ll find him. I know he’s out there. We might meet in a convalescent home, but I’ll find him!”

I didn’t meet him in a convalescent home, but almost. And tomorrow’s another day.

---