Becoming an Old Maid?

By the time I was nineteen over half of the girls I knew were either engaged or married.  All three of my cousins who were the same age as me were married.  I wasn't surprised that all of the popular, pretty girls were settling down, but even the majority of the average girls had found a husband and were starting families.  At first I thought they were crazy, getting married so young, but it wasn't long before I was afraid I was the odd one, being left behind.

It's one thing to wonder in passing if you might end up being an old maid, it's another to find yourself actually facing that possibility.  Of course, nineteen was still young, certainly not old maid material, but when everyone else is getting married you start to worry.  I did.

I had one cousin, my oldest, who had not married yet.  But that didn't help me feel better, because she was gorgeous and popular and single because she chose to be.  Terry was six or seven years older than me.  She was adorable, cute and petite, and all the boys chased after her.  I'd heard that a young man who lived in our neighborhood had asked Terry to marry him, but she had turned him down because he wasn't the right one.  Knowing that my cousin was single, over twenty, and still very cool didn't alleviate my concern about not having any prospects myself, though.  After all, I really wasn't like Terry.  She was single by choice.  I was single because I wasn't anybody's choice.

Not that there weren't any possibilities, they were just very limited.  I dreamed of marrying someone tall, dark and hansom, with blue eyes and short hair and a determination to do what was right no matter the cost.  It seemed to me, though, that I was surrounded by short, wishy washy, dirty blonde boys who were more interested in cars and hunting than making something out of themselves.  The tall, good looking guys I ran across were either already engaged or looking the other direction.

Their moms seemed to notice me, though.  One day I was looking through the greeting cards at the bookstore when a total stranger struck up a conversation with me.  She was really nice and I had fun talking to her, but then out of the blue she asked me if I had a steady boyfriend. 

"No," I answered, very surprised she would ask me something like that. 

"Well, I have a son....." she began, and off she went telling me about her son who was a really great guy, but having a hard time finding girls that his mom approved of. 

"So, would you be interested in going out with him if he called you?"  she asked.

"I, I, I,well, I guess so," I stumbled, not sure what I was letting myself in for. 

That evening he called and told me his mom had suggested he ask me out on a date, so would I like to go with him to the single-adult fireside the next evening?

He sounded cute, and his mom had said he was good looking and nice, and she had seemed really nice, so I said yes.  And I was kind of excited.

The next night he came and picked me up and we went to the fireside.  He really was cute (blonde instead of dark, but you can't have everything) and I thought he was really nice although he was kind of quiet, but that was the end of it.  He brought me home, thanked me for a nice evening, and I never heard from him again.  What a bummer!

Another time a lady in our ward set me up with her nephew who was visiting from out of town.  He was also supposed to be really cute, tall, and very nice.  And he was.  He took me out hiking up the front of Superstition Mountain. I loved hiking the trails on the back side of the mountain, but I had never even heard of anyone trying to climb the front.  About a third of the way up the gently sloping base turns into sheer cliff, and you have to find chimneys and cracks to scramble through, often climbing from one huge boulder to another. 

I was still taking yoga classes in college, working hard on improving my lotus position.  I had noticed over the last few months that my knees sometimes felt wobbly, and wondered if stretching and bending them into a pretzel wasn't very good for them. 

When we got as high as we could on the face of the mountain we sat and looked over the valley for a few minutes, and then began climbing down.  I knew from past experience that climbing down was often harder than climbing up, but I wasn't prepared for the way my knees began to ache as I climbed down from one boulder to the next.  I didn't say anything, but perhaps my date decided I wasn't his type if I couldn't cheerfully leap over rocks, because he also never called me again.

The following week I was sitting in class, listening to my professor, when my knee slipped out of it's socket.  Man! that was painful!  I hobbled out to the car, wondering what on earth had happened, and as soon as I got home put a bag of ice on my knee and rested it on a pillow.  After a few hours it slipped back in and I was OK, but it sure scared me.

On and off for years afterward my knee would suddenly pop out like that, usually when it was it bent at a awkward angle.  The doctor gave me some exercises to strengthen my ligaments, but it took a long time for it to stop happening.

I was only nineteen years old and had my whole life in front of me, but sometimes it sure seemed like there wasn't much to look forward to.  I was over half way done with college, well on my way to getting my BA in elementary education and a teaching certificate so I could be a school teacher, but I wasn't excited about it.  All I ever wanted to do was just be a mother, a wife, and a homemaker.  I wasn't like the girls today, dreaming about the careers they want.  I just wanted to be a mom.  But it didn't look like I was going the right direction to accomplish that goal.