Sara Eckel Quotes & Sayings

When you're experiencing that year-in, year-out challenge of being on your own, it's easy to ask the question "What does everyone else know that I don't?" I suggest you flip that around. — Sara Eckel

Dating is an act of outrageous vulnerability. You're leaving the comfort of your home and your friends to subject yourself to the scrutiny of strangers. You're sliding into that restaurant booth, plopping your laptop and gym bag on the floor, and saying, 'Hi, I'm Sara. Let's see if we can start a life together, shall we?'

It doesn't get more optimistic than that. — Sara Eckel

The Family and Medical Leave Act, for example, only entitles spouses, grown children, and parents to take time off to care for a sick loved one. If a childless single person falls ill, only her parents have the legal right to take off work to care for her. If they're deceased or not up to the task, she's out of luck. Even if she has a sister, niece, or best friend willing to take a leave, they won't be legally entitled to do so. No one has the right to care for her. — Sara Eckel

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We all want to feel needed, and we also want to be with people who can manage on their own, if needbe. — Sara Eckel

Now when I remember the woman I was - heaving herself off the couch to go on another Internet date, taking a deep breath before walking into the party where she'd see her ex and his new girlfriend - I don't feel a trace of contempt or embarrassment. I have a funny admiration for the girl who kept taking her licks and got back up again. That was me. Doing my best. Which, of course, is all any of us can do. — Sara Eckel

No one ever asks "Why are you married?" even though the question is just as valid as "Why are you single?" After all, people marry for many reasons other than pure love--fear of being alone, a desire for biological children, economic security, social status, health insurance. — Sara Eckel

Loneliness is treated like the ultimate taboo; at the same time, it's regarded as a trifle. That to be a thirty-seven-year-old who has spent a decade without someone to hold her hand at the doctor's office is akin to being a thirteen-year-old sighing over a boy band.

Again, I know - 'single' is not a synonym for 'lonely.' I know there are many lonely married people, as well as lots of single people who have a rich network of deep social connections - friends, sisters, daughters, nephews, etc. - whose lives are as far from Heller's unhappy narrator as can be.

But for many of us, living alone in a society that is so rigorously constructed around couples and nuclear families is hard on the soul. — Sara Eckel

Here's a thought: Maybe you've remained single well into adulthood because...you know what you're doing. Because there is something right with you. — Sara Eckel

Human beings are not houses - you don't walk in and say, 'Well, so long as we gut the kitchen and add a third bathroom, this could work,' or, 'It has no charm, but it's close to work and it's all I can afford.' No. You love them as they are, or you let them find someone else who does. — Sara Eckel

I have friends who are still looking, friends who are married, and friends who are divorced. The difference, I've come to see, is largely due to chance, rather than character. Because after all those years of self-doubt, my late-marrying friends and I found men who love us even though we're still cranky and neurotic, even though we still haven't got our careers together, even though we sometimes talk too loud or drink too much or swear at the TV when the news is on. We have gray hairs and unfashionable clothes and bad attitudes. They love us anyway.

What's wrong with me? What's wrong with any of us? If we're honest, the answer probably is 'plenty.' But that's not the point. — Sara Eckel

I have no problem with being fabulous. My problem comes when you won't allow yourself to be an ordinary woman with a decent apartment and an okay job. When only the mom is allowed to be boring - because her life is so rich with meaning.

When I carefully choreographed the story of how amazing I was, I was acting like one of those helicopter parents - you know, the ones who refuse to admit that their Jackson might suck at math or Stella might not be the world's greatest violinist. 'You are special! You are special!' they cry to their children, hoping this will boost their confidence. But the real message is one of panic: You must be special. Ordinary is not okay. When I walked into a party projecting the Shiny Girl - she of the lighthearted flings and glitzy job - I was essentially doing the same thing. — Sara Eckel