About a week ago, I bought myself a bunch of daisies at the grocery store. I placed them in a clear vase on my bathroom counter- the most colorful room in the house with its butter-colored walls and creamy orange countertop. They look lovely there and they’re still holding up, greeting me with their cheerful, open faces every morning when I brush my teeth. There are days when I delight in such small acts, prettying my home with things that I love: my antique blue mason jars lined up on a windowsill, my books stacked in dusty piles on the shelves of the living room. But then there are days when something as small as this, an innocuous bouquet of little white daisies, can make me unbearably sad. They seem false somehow, as if I’m trying to pretend that things aren’t as lonely as they appear to be. Perhaps the flowers we buy for ourselves can never be real.

I have been in such a strange emotional space these last few days. I met with a doctor last week and after our consultation, as he was standing up to leave, he said something that has utterly confounded me.

“You’re doing a great thing, raising those girls on your own,” he said. “The best thing you can do for them is to be happy. But you cannot be truly happy until you have a man in your life.”

At first I was shocked, and then immediately filled with rage. How dare he insinuate that my life is not whole, not complete, without a man in it? How dare he measure my worth and my happiness in this way? I resolved to switch doctors and never see this man again, never give him another chance to belittle who I am. But now that the anger has receded a bit, I have been left with a profound sense of confusion. I’m starting to wonder if he’s right.

I always tell my friend Pamela that humans are pack animals. We’re not made to hunt solo, roaming a lonely mountainside, staking out our territory. We’re the whales who travel in family groups, calling to each other, swimming side by side. Our babies are born helpless and innocent, needing the protection of the pack. And as adults our hearts yearn for familial connection, even when our brains tell us we’re just fine on our own. Everything tastes better and looks better and feels better when we share it with another person. This morning, Pamela and I took advantage of the sunshine and drove to a hidden bluff overlooking the broad, blue waters of the Sound. It was beautiful; wisps of clouds hung suspended in the sky and a chilly breeze blew off the water, whipping strands of hair into our mouths. The ground was soggy and smelled like Spring. We sat and talked, and we sat and didn’t talk, and everything about it was wonderful. And I know that as much as I love that place, as beautiful as it is, it was more beautiful because I was there with my best friend.

I thought about what that doctor had said, and I wondered about the life I have built as a single woman. As much as I love my books, would I love them more if I had a partner to read them to? As pretty as my antique jars are, would they seem more beautiful if they were admired by a second pair of eyes? Would I enjoy my daisies more if they had been presented to me in the hands of a man that I adore? As much as my independent, feminist brain rejects those questions, my heart tells me the answer is an unequivocal yes. It’s an answer that, thankfully, doesn’t require an action. I don’t need to set up a dating profile or tart myself up the next time I run errands, hoping to attract a partner. It’s not something that I need to be whole or happy. But I think it’s important to acknowledge the yearning in my heart, the desire to share my life with someone else. Yes, I can say to it, I hear you. I’m not ignoring you. Be patient. Wait, wait, and the time will come.

It occurred to me the other day that perhaps I don’t get out enough. I realized this as I was sitting on my couch, wrapped in a blanket and staring out the window. I wasn’t unhappy- quite the contrary, I was enjoying just sitting there, looking at the trees and the sky and thinking my thinky thoughts. I knew there were things that needed to be done, like the laundry and the dishes and the grocery shopping, but I was so content that I didn’t want to move. So I gave myself a time limit. Fifteen more minutes of thinking, and then we get to work. Which is when I realized that there was, perhaps, an eensy little problem. I ask you, what kind of healthy, well-adjusted woman has to force herself to get up off the couch because she’s having too much fun thinking? I could see this for reading, or sleeping, or even taking a bath: “Fifteen more minutes in this lovely hot water before I have to get dressed and move on with my day.” But thinking? Spacing out? “Oh, I’m sorry Mom, I’d love to come over for dinner but the scene playing out in my head is just getting to the good part and I don’t think I’ll be able to tear myself away.” There must be something wrong with me.

I realize this makes me sound like a very ill, very boring societal outcast. I really don’t think I am that ill or that boring, although can I trust my own judgement on this? After all, doesn’t the most closed-minded person you know consider himself to be incredibly open-minded? But seriously, I don’t think I’m that bad. Last night, for instance, I went out to dinner with a group of people and chatted and laughed like a normal, grown-up twenty-something. Granted, the best part of the evening was at the end of the night when I was in the parking lot. I noticed that the woman who had followed me out the door was carrying three pizza boxes and NOT WEARING ANY SHOES. The thoughts that races through my mind were fantastic. Her feet must be cold, I thought. Where in the world are her shoes? Why is she still wearing nylons? Maybe she was on her way home from work and her feet were killing her and her husband was waiting for her to come home and make him dinner because all he does is drink beer and watch football and criticize her tuna casserole and she just couldn’t take it anymore so she rolled down her window on the highway and threw caution to the wind (and her shoes out the window) and decided she would never cook for that ungrateful bastard ever again so she picked up some pizzas instead. I mean, there had to be a good story behind that one, right? And if I didn’t try to figure it out, then the story of The Woman Without Any Shoes would have just been absorbed into the night and the moment would have been wasted.

Oh, dear. No wonder people tell me they have never met anyone quite like me. All this time I’ve been taking it as a compliment, when what they’re really trying to say is, “Karli, I’ve never met anyone who is more interested in silently crafting a narrative for the mole above my right eye than responding the question I just asked. I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”

This must be why my Facebook wall posts have been dwindling lately.

During breakfast yesterday morning, Zibbit picked up the glass of water I had set in front of her and said, “Mom, after this I don’t have to drink ever again. This morning I found out my mouth makes its own water, so I can just drink that!”

Babs, who was listening to our conversation from her seat on the other side of the table, froze. After a moment she set down her spoon and looked at her sister with pure, unadulterated disgust.

“ZIBBIT,” she said, “YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT SPIT.”

“Oh,” giggled Zibbit, and she drank her water, finished her breakfast, and moved on with her morning. It wasn’t so easy for Babs. She spent the rest of the morning rolling her eyes and shaking her head and muttering under breath like somebody’s old, disapproving grandmother. She’s seven now, which means she now realizes that her family is made up of a bunch of drooling, twitching idiots.

It was a swift, silent transition, almost overnight, as if The Knowledge Fairy came to her while she was sleeping the night before her birthday and sprinkled glitter into her hair, whispering, “You’re old enough now, darling. It’s time you saw the truth.” Babs woke up and found herself the only rational being in a house full of chimpanzees. The looks she gives me now are vile. I can almost smell her distaste smoldering in the air between us. I get these looks when I remind her to brush her teeth at night, finish her dinner, or do her homework. She’ll glare at me for a moment, and then growl in a low, dangerous voice, “You don’t have to remind me of that anymore, Mom. I’m SEVEN.” I respond with something weak and over-used, along the lines of even if you’re seven I am still your mother at which point she rolls her eyes so violently I’m afraid they will spin all the way around inside her skull, sighs dramatically, and stomps out of the room. Zibbit, well aware of her new position as The Child Who Does Not Hate You, takes this opportunity to climb into my lap and ask me how many freckles I have, giving me loving pats on the cheek. I bask in her littleness for a moment before reluctantly shuffling after Babs to remind her that I still love her even when she’s mad at me.

“I love you very much,” I say, “and it’s ok for you to be mad but I want to remind you that you still need to be kind and respectful to your family.”

“I KNOW THAT!” she yells at me and I want to grab her and open her mouth and look down her throat to try to find the little girl I know, the one that this creature has apparently eaten. Six was difficult with its sudden growth spurts and the realization that sometimes you don’t have to go to school if you pretend to be very sick, but Seven is just a plain, old asshole. The problem with Seven is that it knows you’re in charge, but it doesn’t have to like it and it will sure as hell make sure you know that. Seven is cold and mean and distant. Seven makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a fork and sell them on the black market so I can fund my escape to Brazil. I’m counting down the months until we reach Eight, which I hear is lovely and sweet and helpful, and hoping I can make it until then without causing irreparable damage to one of our psyches.

I have to go pick her up from school now, and I’m tempted to arrive laden with presents and candy and maybe a puppy, anything to make her like me again, but I know that will just cause more problems. She’ll blame me when the puppy shits on her pillow. So all I can do is smile and try to hug her even when she wrenches out of my grasp and never let a day pass without telling her how much I love her. And then pray very, very hard for Jesus to make next February come faster.