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What follows is more of a freewrite on being single and aging. Not really that important, but you’re welcome to read it if you’d like.

So recently, it seems like every time I turn around, another one of my friends is accomplishing some big event like buying a home, returning from a mission, getting married, or having a baby. (Luckily, I haven’t had any friends do all four at once. Awkward….) And at times like these, my thoughts are inevitably drawn to the murky future when, hopefully, it will be my turn to participate in some of the aforementioned activities.

And, honestly, I’m not in a hurry. I mean, sure I’d really like to kiss someone much sooner than later—it’s been a year, after all, since my last kiss—but that doesn’t mean I want the person I kiss sooner to be the one with whom I spend all my laters. I don’t mind being patient if it increases my chances of being happy with the life I end up with.

Of course, this patience is bought with a price. Lately I’ve had a bleak fascination with the sheer physical mechanics of getting older. Sometimes the aging process reminds me not-so-subtly of fairy tales in which a person undergoes a tough and painful transition from someone beautiful to something…less; to me the process of aging is equally dramatic—just on a slower, more gradual scale. (And let’s not start any semantic arguments about what it means to get older or the age at which you become older; those arguments would only be a distraction from my point.) The fact remains that the wrinkles on my forehead and around my mouth are deepening a little at a time. My tummy isn’t as tight as it used to be. I’m not as flexible or athletic as I once was (which is saying a lot as I was never very much of either). The list goes on, but I’m sure you get the picture. The physical self I’ll be spending the rest of my life with—and giving to the one who will eventually share a lifetime with me—is becoming less perfect and less of a gift day after day.

It is, however, my devout hope that as my physical self diminishes, my self contained within my mortal coil will increase. And certainly, being single for longer than I’d consciously planned has generated much personal growth—and has been immensely rewarding. As a result, I’ve been able to cultivate deep friendships, develop new passions, and overcome some old habits. I have tried new activities—things a previous iteration of myself would never have considered—and found them to my liking. Hopefully my sense of passion and compassion, of sympathy and empathy, have deepened as well. Perhaps this is what my parents meant when they encouraged me to “broaden my horizons.”

When the proverbial dust settles, and it is my turn to give myself to someone for a lifetime, I hope that my gift of a greater self will more than make up for my lesser physical gift and that these signs of aging will become endearing proofs of a deeper, longer-lasting beauty.