It’s National Unmarried & Single Americans Week

Yeah, really — we’ve got a thing called National Unmarried & Single Americans Week. Granted, this is not a jazzy-sounding event. But hey, I’ll take it anyway. Single folks, we deserve the attention!

And I could use a pat on the back right now. There is so much that I do all by my onesome, just to get through the day. I slog through the bills alone, keep up the maintenance of my house alone and spend many hours talking to myself. Let’s hear it for being single and unmarried!

If you’re never heard of this week, you’re not alone — haha. Our calendar is filled with all sorts of national weeks to acknowledge. Why, September alone (haha again) brings us everything from National Clean Hands Week and National Payroll Week to Suicide Prevention Week and National Love Your Files Week. For a look at the possibilities, here’s a website that lists national weekly celebrations (but somehow manages to miss National Unmarried & Single Americans Week).

This week is sponsored by a group called Unmarried America, which I’ve never heard of. I actually found out about this week from the U.S. Census, which has taken the occasion to put out a list of all the interesting facts related to us single and unmarried folks. The rundown of stats from the government is quite interesting:

FACT: The U.S. has 99.6 million people over the age of 18 who are not married — 43.6 percent of the entire population.

FACT: 44.9 percent of the unmarrieds are women.

FACT: 61 percent of the folks over 18 who are not married have never been married, while 23.8 percent are divorced and 14.4 percent are widowed.

FACT: There are 88 unmarried men for every 100 unmarried women.

FACT: 31.4 million people live alone, accounting for 27 percent of all American households.

FACT: 11.7 million single parents live with their children; 9.9 million of them are single moms and 1.8 million are single dads.

If perusing data amuses you, the Census has more stuff you can read through.

Putting this out here for you now is somehow comforting for me…this is one of those moments were there is emotional safety in the numbers.

We are not alone.    :)