Welcome
Welcome to Second Row, a place for Catholic women who are orthodox and faithful but who don’t quite fit the “mold” of the normal Catholic lifestyle. We may be single career women who never met the right person; we may be converts or reverts who have a not-so-savory past; we may even be lesbians who are choosing to live consistent with the teachings on chastity and celibacy. We might be widows with grown children; or married but childless and done with fertility treatments; or even just the sole Catholic amidst a family of non-Catholics.
Whoever we are, we’re working out our relationships with God and the Church as best we can; but we often feel invisible and excluded simply because there are so few of us and our parishes don’t have the resources to minister to such a small population. While we recognize that, it doesn’t cure the loneliness that comes at times or help us find our place within the parish and the Church.
I’ve been known to quip that while the Church wants me, the local parishes don’t know what to do with me. I was married and divorced very young, and spent a little over two decades as a divorcée before marrying my husband in 2019. It’s the second marriage for both of us - ours is the Sacramental one - and while he has children, I do not. His children are still minors so they’re with us for many weekends during the year, but he’s not the primary custodian which means that, especially during the week, we live the life of a childless couple. At the same time, since we have to maintain readiness for the children, we have expenses and needs that “childfree” couples do not.
We’re not childfree anyway, since we’re open to the possibility of having our own children. That said, I’m in my late forties and going through the menopausal transition. The chances of that actually happening are very small, and realistically, neither of us has the energy to chase a toddler around anymore anyway. There’s a reason that fertility peaks in your twenties.
During those decades when I was alone, I built a career in a field that isn’t related to children or caretaking, so the standard advice to “help with other people’s children” doesn’t work in my case. I wouldn’t make a good teacher, caretaker, or nurse. God gave me a different talent set, and I’m already using it to its full potential. It’d be defiance of him to try and force myself into a more traditional mold.
I have a personal blog where I explore other aspects of my life, but here, I’m going to be talking about the challenges of being Catholic, faithful, and non-traditional. Posts will be about learning to find my “tribe,” finding a place to fit in at the parish, the occasional rant about the well-meaning but deeply painful comments I get from others, and similar items. I welcome reader interaction via the comments, and in the future may even welcome guest posts.
Sometimes, when you can’t find your tribe, you have to make it. Let’s do it together.
Originally posted at https://secondrow.stannumenterprises.com/2022/welcome/.