Thanks for the Encouragement...

Yet another swim meet today - this one was at OU. The Michigan Open - last chance to qualify for States and / or improve seed times before States. I just love the smell of chlorine.

So, I got to the meet, found Miss and sat down between her and another mom (we'll call her Insensitive Lady, or IL for short) from Justin's team. I got there just as Miss was explaining that Jamie wasn't going to be there today (exhausted and sore from a long day the day before - healing is hard) and the conversation went as such:
Miss: "No, Jamie's not going to be here today. But we have Aunt Carrie!"
IL: "Well, it's certainly not as good as having Dad here."
Me: *trying to hide my irritation* "Sorry?"
IL: "I mean it's nice that you came, but it's just not the same."
Me: "No, I suppose not. I do try to make it to as many of his meets as I can. I always love to watch Justin swim."
IL: "Oh, will you be at the State Meet?" *spoken in a tone to test me to see if I knew when it was*
Me: "I wouldn't miss it, though I'll likely only be there on the 6th and 7th." *take that, Insensitive Lady!*
IL: "Do you have any kids?"
Me: "Nope."
IL: "Are you married?"
Me: "Nope." *now witnessing the look on her face that says we officially have nothing in common*
IL: "Oh. Well. There's still time for you."
Me: No response. Conversation over.

How can one appropriately respond to this without picking a fight? Regardless, a few ideas came about while texting this to Danielle and Tia:
Danielle via text message: "Oh, you have to bitch slap her for that one."
My text back to Danielle: "Next time that happens I'm going to tell them I am a barren widow and they should step off."

There are just so many irritants with that comment. What if I was a lesbian? What if I couldn't have kids for some reason? Why would you assume that your choices in life are the only ones someone would aspire to? Why would you assume that the only way to feel complete is to have a husband and children? When's the last time you jetted for the weekend without having to tell anyone where you were going, how long you'd be gone, or feeling like you needed to prepare everything for your family so that they could survive a couple of days without you?

A short while later, I noticed that embroidered on her tote bag was "Women of Faith." I could only think to myself, "Well, there's still time for you, too!"