As long as I can remember, I have always wanted a long term relationship. Being single has always been a fear of mine. I've had boyfriends, but none of the relationships lasted. Then, one day, I found myself in the category of single.
I realized that I had never been single since I started dating at the age of 16. I have always been in a consistent relationship, or have been dating someone seriously. I didn't realize this until I was really on my own. It happened my junior year of college.
Everyone knows your junior year is basically the time to start looking for your husband, or so I've been told. So you can understand why I was kind of freaking out about not having a boyfriend.
My 21st birthday came and then my 22nd, and then my 23rd, and I found myself still going on date, after date, after date. I hadn't found anyone that I thought I could really see myself with for the long run. Even now that I am almost 24, I still haven't found that person. But I'm here to tell you that it is okay.
Yes, I just said it was okay that you haven't found your soul mate and permanently changed your relationship status on Facebook, just yet. You're in your twenties! A lot of people think that as soon as you turn 21, you have a timer on the marriage clock. You have to be engaged, or planning your wedding, before your time runs out. Before all the good men are taken. This is wrong.
There are a lot of good men in the world, and there is no such thing as a marriage time clock. Despite what you may have heard and seen, it is okay to be single. You have the rest of your life to commit to, and submit to, another person. If you find yourself eating ice cream and watching "The Notebook" on a Friday night a few times, so what? Being single is actually a gift, among other things.
Now that I have spent a few years figuring myself out, I understand the importance of truly knowing myself. My parents used to tell me, when I was younger, that I didn't know what I wanted. I always said that I would never change and that I was always going to be the same person I was, right then in that moment. Boy was I totally wrong.
Not only did I realize that I had changed within a five year time span, the people around me had changed, as well. The types of things I was interested in had changed, and I had become a completely different person from when I was 18 years old. Just as I changed, you will also change. You will surprise yourself.
When you are single it is the time to live, to explore, to fall in love with yourself. This is the time when you can stay out all night, or travel abroad, or do something crazy and wild. When you have someone else in your life these types of things are hard to do.
When you find yourself feeling down about not having a boyfriend your last few years of college, remember that you all the time in the world. There's no such thing as a clock on relationships. You have to figure out what it is that you value in another person. How can you know what you want in a relationship when you haven't figured yourself out?
