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Every Thursday afternoon, you could find Hazel and Violet Edwards, single sisters in their 50s, sitting in Dr. MacDonald’s small downtown office. Once a week, the optometrist traveled from a bigger town 60 miles away to see patients in our little village of about 1,000 people in rural New Mexico.

Hazel and Violet only had an appointment with Dr. MacDonald once a year, like the rest of us. But they enjoyed visiting with the locals who were a captive audience in the waiting room until it was their turn to see the doctor. While chatting, the sisters multitasked by crocheting doilies for senior girls, months in advance of the spring high-school graduation each year.

Of course, people thought they were strange and pitiful, especially us teenagers. My own Mama used to encourage my sisters and me to find a husband as early as possible, admonishing us, “Don’t turn out like Hazel and Violet Edwards!” As if being an old maid was the worst thing that could happen. Little did I know that I would encounter fates much worse, including everything from unfulfilling or one-sided relationships to abusive ones.

But now my sister and I have turned into Violet and Hazel Edwards. And we love the freedom.

After four miserable years of marriage, I got divorced in 2005. And after 25 years of both happy and miserable times, my sister is getting divorced, too. She moved in with me about a month ago.

Now we’re realizing that Violet and Hazel Edwards were way before their time. While most of the women in our hometown spent all of their time, energy and resources tending to children and mostly-ungrateful men, Hazel and Violet were growing a vegetable garden, eating an occasional lunch at the local café, volunteering their time at the nursing home, baking cakes for elderly shut-ins, babysitting for younger neighbors so that they could attend local events, gallivanting to the nearby town to shop the department-store sales and (gasp!) taking in an occasional movie at the theater.

My sister and I are having a blast doing our own thing. She keeps marveling at how she can go to bed early if she wants, without having to apologize or explain. And he’s not there at 3am, hounding her for sex like she’s a vending machine. We take turns cooking for each other, and the one who doesn’t cook washes the dishes. She is grateful that I wash the dishes, and I am grateful that she cooks. When we clean the house, it stays clean longer. And instead of the five loads of laundry that she was doing each week, there is only one load between the two of us. That leaves time for going to festivals, concerts, plays and movies, eating out, checking in on elderly neighbors, walking our dogs on a nearby trail, watching Lifetime Television Network (with no one in the background screaming that it’s stupid), reading books (without a man complaining that he’s being ignored), and buying a new pair of shoes (without having to sneak the bag in). Oh, and belting out Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” every chance we get.

We do not crochet doilies, and we do not hang out at the local optometrist’s office to catch up with our peeps. We have Facebook for that. Times have changed in some ways, but having the opportunity to take care of our own needs is timeless. My sister and I have no children, although we always wanted them, and there is definitely a void there because of it. But the gift in our situation is that we are able to take care of ourselves and each other and enjoy life to the fullest. We will be going to Scotland to visit friends in July, something she could have never done when she was married.

I don’t know if it was the Walt Disney classics or our Mama who led us to believe that there was one special man out there who would fulfill our every need and ensure that we live happily ever after. Sure, there are some nice guys out there, but as we all know now, as adults, relationships are hard work, and one person cannot fulfill our every need. And if you don’t have a solid foundation of self-esteem, reciprocal trust and respect and a host of other weapons in your personal arsenal, you end up one of the statistics. Half of us are divorced in this country, and speaking with many of my 40-ish friends about marriage recently tells me that many women who are among the other 50 percent are wishing to God they were single. If you are one of the lucky women who did find a good match, and if you heeded that persistent little voice in your gut that told you when a guy wasn’t right for you (instead of shushing the voice even as you paraded down the aisle in your white dress and faux smile, like I did), then I admire you. Okay, maybe I’m even a little envious.

But maybe someone out there actually envies us modern-day spinsters, too. And maybe some of my own mother’s acquaintances secretly envied Violet and Hazel’s freedom and self-awareness back in the 1970s. They were ahead of their time, and despite my mother’s warning, I’m proud to have turned out like them.

Libbye Morris Libbye Morris is a freelance writer who lives in Durham. Her writing has been featured in many publications, including The Washington Post, Equus and élan. She is also the senior writer for a consulting firm in Chapel Hill.