Being the Best Single You Can Be
How I Wait (For Love, Marriage, and all the stuff in between)
In Jane Austen’s Emma, one of the best exchanges of dialogue comes from Mr. Knightley responding to the ever irritating Mrs. Elton. When the recently married woman offers to form the guest list for Mr. Knightley’s house party, since he’s a bachelor, he gives this great response.
“No,” he calmly replied, “there is but one married woman in the world whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and the one is — “
“Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” Interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.
“No- Mrs. Knightley; and until she is in being, I will manage such matters myself.”
His response, “until she is in being,” has given me pause more than once. It fits well within my personal views of fate, of inevitability. His attitude is one which would serve us well if we are waiting for love, for romance and marriage. Provoking us to consider how we are to behave and act until we have actually said those all so important words of, “I do.”
If I believe I will marry someday, by implication, it means the future Mrs. Layhew is out there and is not fictional, but real. It forces me to ask if current actions reflect that belief. Am I making choices or decisions which…
