The day I enjoyed the tulips, I also saw something that made my heart heavy: a “marriage market.” I’d heard of this phenomenon in China, but I’d never seen on in person. A marriage market takes place in a park, generally in a big city like Beijing or Shanghai. Parents who are worried that their child isn’t married yet bring what a classified ad about their child–170cm tall, born in 1983, has a Beijing household registration, owns a house in Beijing, lived overseas in Japan, has white skin, has a good job, Communist party member–printed on an A4 piece of paper, often slipped into a plastic sheet protector. They stake out a bit of space on the ground to advertise their child and meet parents of potential spouses. At this particular time, there must have been hundreds of people crowded into a small area, so I didn’t read a lot of ads in detail. I also didn’t want to linger and have someone get an idea about landing a foreign wife for their son!
Crowds perusing the “marriage market”–if you look closely on the ground on the left side of the photo, you can see some of the paper classifieds! I didn’t want to take close-ups, because they contain so much personal info that doesn’t need to be online.
I walked back towards the tulips with a heaviness in my heart. Heaviness about the anxiety about getting married that both young people and their parents hold. Heaviness to see people reduced to factual descriptions, characters on a page. Heaviness to wonder how the “children” (who are actually fully grown adults in their 30’s and 40’s) feel about their parents hawking them at a marriage market. Wondering if they even know their parents are doing this. And heaviness in my heart that if there were marriage markets in the U.S., my parents could be right there with the parents congregating in Beijing. Heaviness that I have said goodbye to my own dream of marrying young and raising a family as a young parent.
As a young girl, people often said “you’ll make a good wife some day” or “you’ll be a really good mom.” Those comments, along with the people and culture around me, and my own desire, set my expectations for my life: I’d marry in my early to mid-20’s and raise children. I wouldn’t marry “later”, like my mom who was in her late 20’s when she got married. That was the dream.
This dream is not going to happen.
I’m not saying that I will never marry, or never have children by birth or adoption, but I am not planning on it happening. If it does happen, I’m going to be closer to 40 than 30, or even older.
I’ve grieved the way this dream has withered and died over the last few years. When I came to China this time, I knew that I was decreasing my chance to get married. And yet, I knew it was the right thing to do, to follow where I was Called rather than stay in the U.S. for the possible opportunity to maybe meet someone whom I might decide to someday marry. It was the right thing to do, but that doesn’t mean that it was the easy thing to do.
Dreams die hard.
Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly grieving the death of this dream. Sometimes the grief has expressed itself in lonely tears, a feeling of discontent, anguished prayers, blog posts, rambling journal entries, tearful messages to friends, or mulling over a comment someone made to me about my “too high standards” or my appearance for days. The grief comes in waves, seasons where I am more or less content with doing life as a single person.
Enjoying my life “day camping” (for lack of a better word)–taking a tent to hang out in a park for a day, but not staying overnight.
As the seasons where I’ve been content have lengthened, I’ve had space to start some new dreams. Dreams of living faithfully and using my gifts, no matter where I am called. Dreams of being an awesome aunt, even from thousands of miles away. Dreams of owning a house somewhere near a lake that I can let others use as a place to get away and retreat. Dreams of publishing a book. Dreams of a camper van trip around New Zealand. Dreams of living with a friend if we’re both not married when we retire.
I’ve noticed I hold these dreams a little looser. Other than living faithfully, all these dreams could change. I don’t know what the future holds. But I dare to dream that even though what I thought my life would be was wrong, I can still live in faithful and fruitful ways.
Linking up to Velvet Ashes The Grove.
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