The Missing Piece

Almost every one of my friends is married. About two months ago, another one got hitched. Which triggered some retrospection on my part, to my perpetual single status.

Being singled out, pun unintended, can be a very lonely feeling. To think of it, I have always been singled out, even when I was in school. Those days, we would need to form a line outside the classroom in twos. I would worry that I wouldn't find a partner to stand in line with. I am left-handed and there weren't many left handers in school, so I would be left out (again pun unintended) of softball practice because they did not have left handers gloves. In university, I was the social misfit.

In Sngapore, we were taught by society to pursue the 5 Cs: Condo, Car, Creditcard, Cash and Country Club membership. If the 5 Cs are a yardstick to a person's success in life, then with marriage, one would say that they have come full circle. Add in 2 kids and you will be deemed by society to be a complete family unit.
I do not fit into the general demographics of Singapore. Being single at 35. I also do not have a condo, car or country club membership.

I am mostly at peace with my situation. I do not live my life looking for the second part to the sentence "I'd be happy if I were/had..." (Ok, maybe if I were slimmer and $100,000 richer I would be happy-er) Undeniably, once in a while, the loneliness of being singled out, still surfaces. Especially when this last single friend got married. When the music stops will I be the one left without a chair? But wait, do I really care?
One day I stumbled on a book called The Missing Piece, by Shel Silverstein. Basically it was about a circle that was missing a piece. It was not happy, so it sets out in search of its missing piece. However when it found its missing piece, the circle realized that it wasn't necessarily happier being whole. It reaffirmed everything!

I had thought few people were missing pieces of themselves till the time I told this story to a friend who seemed to have everything. I found out that night everyone of us has a missing piece.

I will always have a missing piece, unfortunately one that is trapped in dogma. But it's because I have this particular missing piece that I could enjoy the freedom that married people won't have. The freedom to book a plane ticket to anywhere in the world, spend money however I want, to be answerable to no one but myself. Maybe one day the lightness of being will prove unbearable, but that day is far from near.