Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Susan Fitzgerald's letter reflects that she wasn't willing to settle for the wrong man just to avoid being alone.

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The Letters

• "Be proud of your independence"

Past letters

May 14

• Love and longing

April 29

• Faith and family

In 1984, Susan Fitzgerald was a newly minted Virginia Tech alumna, bound for a job as a paralegal at a Richmond law firm. She was ambitious and outgoing, with the freedom to do what she wanted, whenever she wanted.

But as the years passed and she remained single while her friends got married and started families, Fitzgerald began to wonder when -- and if -- she would meet the right person to spend her life with.

"When you're single in your 20s, you've got lots of people your age who aren't married. But when you hit a certain age, you become the minority," said Fitzgerald, now 46 and happily married. "You inevitably think 'what is wrong with me?' "

The memory of these lapses in self confidence prompted Fitzgerald to put pen to paper after seeing The Roanoke Times' call for women to write letters to their younger selves.

"There's a lot of advice that would've benefited me when I was that age," she explained.

"Being over 30, single, and childless is NOT a tragedy. Nor is it hopeless, pathetic or freakish," she wrote. "Be PROUD of the fact that you are independent and competent."

Christina Adams, a California-based author who has been a close friend of Fitzgerald's since both attended Gate City High School in Virginia, said that despite occasional insecurity, Fitzgerald never defined herself by her single status.

"It was more a matter of people putting that pressure on her, than her putting it on herself," Adams said. "I always respected that she never bowed into the pressures."

Fitzgerald's letter reflects that she wasn't willing to settle for the wrong man just to avoid being alone.

"Remember that having no boyfriend/spouse is better than having a bad boyfriend/spouse," she wrote. While she was never involved in a destructive relationship, Fitzgerald said that watching the struggles of other women was enough of a deterrent.

"I've had friends and co-workers where I've just wanted to shake them!" she said of witnessing others' unhealthy relationships.

As she hit her 30s, Fitzgerald began to create realistic expectations for marriage and motherhood, even making peace with the possibility that she might not have biological children. So when she met Brad Fitzgerald in 1997 at the age of 37, she trusted her instincts. They were married in October 1998 and later moved to Roanoke.

"At that point, you already know what you want," Susan Fitzgerald explained of their quick courtship. Two years later, Fitzgerald was thrilled to discover that she was pregnant with twins.

After the premature birth of sons John and William, Fitzgerald made what she called an unexpected decision to temporarily leave her career as a paralegal.

"I wouldn't imagine turning them over to someone else when they were really young," she explained. She admitted that it was a tough adjustment but said that stay-at-home motherhood turned out to be more rewarding than she had anticipated.

"They're both easy-going, good-natured kids," she said of her 7-year-old boys, now first-graders at Oak Grove Elementary School. "A lot of things that I thought would be a chore [about raising children] are just so much fun."

Still, she's planning to get back to work within the next few years, because there are "a lot of skills that I've missed using."

And for those women who are where she once was, Fitzgerald has simple advice.

"Just stay active, as opposed to trying to gear your social life around meeting someone," she said. "Don't pass up opportunities because you feel like you have to have a date to do it."