by Marlena B Beal

Created on: October 14, 2009   Last Updated: October 15, 2009

Ahh. . . the age old question, is a woman complete without a man? I was in love by the time I was 19, married at 21, had my first child by 23 and divorced at 25-not bragging, just a point of fact. Today, as I write about my life without a man, I am a wiser and much more matured 61 year-old female who has learned to live without a man in my life not by choice but by necessity.

Growing up in the rural South of East Tennessee, I always believed my role was to someday be a wife and a mother no matter what path my professional aspirations would take me. I have a son who is almost forty and a daughter I adopted when she was only 9 weeks old and my youngest son is 26, yet I managed without the presence of a man in our lives to raise all my children, teach them how to love, to forgive and to survive. There wasn't almost a day that did not go by that I did not deeply wish I had someone to slip under the covers with at the end of the day and call husband or when my kids left the nest and I felt totally abandoned and useless, to have had a man to hold my hand and say, I'm here, it will be okay.

I have been told our bodies change every seven years and I've noticed significant changes in my life every decade. I have lived over six decades and with each new cycle comes a new beginning, a new direction and new goals. There is an innate desire in most of us females to procreate and be loved. However, changing life styles, cultures and professional pursuits have created roadblocks in what was once the natural order of things for those women who expected love from a man to come early in life and last a lifetime.

Am I complete after being divorced for over 37 years, you bet I am! I did not wait for a man to complete me before I became an artist or writer; I did not wait for a man to complete me before I raised my children and adopted the little girl I had always wanted. I did not wait for a man to complete me to find an ending to this article either!

I truly believe loving and being loved is the human die we are cast in from the very beginning and it is that pursuit of love which forges relationships which last or end but most times, if we're honest, are always worth having good or bad because we learn something from each experience to make us better the next time. Oh yes, at 61 years old, I am still waiting on the love of my life and if I don't find him until I am 85; I won't mind jumping the broom then either. Having a man has nothing to do with completing me in all that I am as a woman but much to do with my personal fulfillment. . . as a woman.

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