I sat inside of an office casually flipping through pages of a local magazine, my third magazine in fact and most of them I had already read twice. I was the only person in the waiting area which made a very difficult situation seem a little bit easier. I could hear the wind whipping around the structure of the building and as I looked out of the window all of downtown Norfolk was moving about throughout the city.

Then the door opened and my mother’s lawyer requested that I come inside.

The memory of that day is still embedded in my brain. Nothing terrified me more than walking into that office and watching my mother suffer from a broken heart that comes with the reality of a divorce and holding back tears that she could no longer confine. To me, my mother symbolized what the walls of Jericho represented to its inhabitants. You don’t expect to see pillars of strength just come crashing down.

What would you do if after 17 years of marriage, you found yourself suddenly single? This is what I am pondering and I also wonder why I am over 30 and still single.

Can someone please tell me where did all the good men go?

According to a study done at Yale University, I’m not alone. Nearly 42% of African American women have yet to be married that’s double the number of white women. Many of these ladies are beautiful, educated, and successful so there is nothing ‘wrong’ (so to say) with them at all. To add to that divorces among African American households are the highest of any other race. So why are so many of us living single?

Some skeptics believe that a lot of unmarried middle class black women are single because they are making as much if not more money than men so there is less of an economical need to get married. Others say that many black women choose to be single because they are not willing to

date men of other races. They are waiting for the perfect ‘brother’ to sweep them off their feet but according to a 2000 U.S. Census there are 1.8 million more black women than there are black men. To add to that 8% of black men are incarcerated, 17% are unemployed, and 21% do not have a high school diploma so if you thought that there were are a lot of fish in the sea before it seems that the pickings just got a whole lot slimmer.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons an increasing number of black women are finding success in love with men of other races.

Maybe I no longer want to be the single girl in a group full of married friends listening to tall tales about what silly thing their husbands did, but I am. And statistics or not if these years are indeed the best years of my life, then I’ve decided to live every precious moment in full detail. Being black and single does not mean that I’m destitute nor does it mean that I should be happy for whatever comes my way. And while I agree that you should be open to new experiences, I do not believe that doing so entails lowering your standards.

When a good thing comes my way, and it will, I’ll know it. For now I choose to live my best life now with every opportunity I get and love like it’s going out of style.

About the author: LaToya Kearney created the Dear Love Diaries on her quest to find all things love. She is currently working on her debut novel.