Spacing Issues

My entire life (really since first grade) I've operated under one overriding truth: when starting a new sentence the first word appears two spaces after a period. However, it has been brought to my attention that it is not only acceptable, but in fact commonplace, to start a new sentence one space after a period. My world has been shaken to it's foundation. While I'm hesitant to work against my punctuational programming, I feel that the single space strategy is far superior, from an aesthetical stance. Makes the page more uniform, more balanced. So, I'm struggling to erase seventeen years of typographical habit and embrace the new standard. Except when writing essays, where every extranious blank space adds to the overall volume of the document without any extra work.