We'll be like torches.

"You struck the match;
Why not be utterly changed to fire?
To sacrifice the shadow and the mist
Of a brief life you never much liked."
--mewithoutYou, "Four-Word Letter, pt. 2"

Some thoughts I've had lately:

Regarding women:
I've often made light of what I've called my "terrible luck" with girls (often enough, in fact, that I believe it's made me odious to certain people), but underneath the jokes, it really was something that caused me inordinate anxiety. Lately I've finally begun to see God's hand at work in all the years I've spent "alone," so to speak; I've realized that I've been thinking all wrong. I thought I needed a girl to love me as a sort of validation; a cosmic stamp of approval that proclaimed me 'LOVABLE.' But I looked where it was not to be found; it is for God to give the final word on the worth of a man, and not for any of His creatures. I tried, as it were, to reverse the sun and the moon; where God was supposed to be the sun, and I revolving around Him and receiving from Him life and light, and any woman who was a part of my life was supposed to be peripheral to that, I reversed the two in my heart; so that God seemed small comfort to me, and I worried overmuch for my lack of warmth. By God's grace I'm beginning to straighten out the stars.

Regarding plans:
I went after Christmas as a chaperon on a trip with my church's youth group to the Youth Evangelism Conference in Macon, GA, and their main speaker, David Platt, gave four very insightful messages over the weekend. He preached from the book of Isaiah, particularly from chapter 6, verses 1-8, in which the prophet has a vision of God, and He ordains him to take His message to Israel. He concluded one of his sermons by admonishing his listeners to "write God a blank check" for their lives. This for me ties back into the previous topic, as he mentioned specifically among the things to be given up, "your hopes of one day being married."
In short, it's what I've decided to do; what, by God's grace, I am doing. Nothing I've ever pursued has given me any lasting happiness; but God promises just that, and begins already to let me taste it. Why should I live my life in pursuit of money, or comfort, or even of a home and a family? What is preferable to the knowledge of God, or the work of His kingdom?
None of this is to say that I never want to be married--on the contrary: there is nothing else under the sun which appeals to me except to have a family. But as I said earlier, the planets must be in their proper orbit; I must say to a woman not as before: "I will be spent for you;" but rather, "Come and be spent with me." He said that a man who is not married is preoccupied with God, and with the things that please Him; but that a man who is married is preoccupied with the world, and with the things that please his wife--and for the first time in my life, that's actually giving me pause. Christ stands at the threshing floor ready to grind me into grain, that I might be made bread for the hungry; and I no longer wish to be held back. I cannot now keep very close to me anyone who will not be ground into grain with me.
The way all that comes down into practical matters is that I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do with myself anymore. Except for His call to me to abandon all that is not simply Himself, He seems silent (though God knows I'm deaf enough to miss Him when He speaks). I never meet any new girls, so as cathartic as it is, my resolve not to look for happiness in women makes no practical difference in my life. As for school, no doors seem to be opening. The only thing that looks like change is that I might move out with some friends soon. In the meantime, I can only assume that God wants me to supervise a drugstore, and do it to the best of my ability.
I've compared this chapter of my life to the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness. God grant me the grace to travel patiently to the next camp where He chooses to give me His word.