Does it ever feel like everyone seems to to be getting on with their lives, moving forward and having new adventures while you are stuck in limbo waiting to find out whether or not marriage is in your destiny? At the start of each new year you wonder if this will be the year it finally happens only to witness the close of another year and you are still where you were at the start. 

Meanwhile younger cousins, colleagues and friends are meeting and marrying the man of their dreams which can lead you to question whether you’ve in fact missed your window and are officially too old to get married?

Can you guess what I’m going to say in response to that? If you know anything about me at all  you know I am a firm believer that women can get married at any age. BUT I can see why it doesn’t always feel like that way.

First of all marriage has always been marketed as something one should do in their early 20s, not just in Muslim communities  but worldwide. Society has constructed a very restrictive and unforgiving blueprint for women to follow: study, graduate, get a job, get married and have children. In fact  I find that the basis of most rom coms is the woman who missed or faltered at one of these milestones.

Secondly these milestones are presented to us as a series of steps. Steps, by nature, go up. Going up suggests winning, succeeding and achieving. It comes with connotations of moving up in the world, reaching new levels and upgrading your life. That’s why when you find yourself a certain age and unmarried you feel like you’re failing or behind, because you perceive yourself as being at the bottom of a man made staircase.

However these blueprints, milestones and steps are flawed and are very diminishing of a woman’s life experiences.

Where in this blueprint is the bit where she excels at her career, saves lives, brings justice to the world, educates others, writes a book, becomes financially independent, buys her own home, discovers the world, memorises the qur’aan, becomes a scholar in Islam, adds to her qualifications, runs a marathon, adopts a child, takes care of a family member, pays her parents’ mortgage or rent, gives generously to charity, starts a business and so many many  more outstanding life achievements? Where are those steps on the staircase?

My point is that just because our communities place marriage and motherhood at the top of the steps doesn’t mean it’s the finishing line.  You are so much more than a series of milestones designed to keep women from playing big. You may not be married yet the same way another woman hasn’t yet found her calling in life. You may not be married yet the same another woman may not yet have achieved her health and fitness goals. You may not be married yet in the same way another woman has not yet had a chance to travel the world. These  are all simply life experiences waiting to happen at any time.

From today I want you to step back from the idea of life as a series of steps.

There’s a reason why it feels like people don’t get you or understand your life or why you sometimes feel like you don’t fit in. It’s because others don’t recognise you outside of the set life steps they understand and know which is why it feels like you’ve missed your chance. You haven’t at all.

Your life is not a series of steps. It’s a series of parallel planes that exist alongside each other. There are so many wonderful things for you to experience in this life that Allah swt has gifted you and marriage, by His will, will be one of them and it will simply move you to another plane, another type of life. Neither better nor worse than where you are now. No one is too old to get married. The sacred nikah is the same ceremony whatever your age. 

Instead of asking yourself “if others can do it why can’t I?” instead say to yourself “others have got married and I can too”.

Being single over 30 is not as rare as peopole would have you believe!

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