I am 25 years old. I’m not married, I don’t have any children and I don’t have a serious boyfriend. However, I did graduate high school, I have an associate degree, a bachelor's and am in grad school. As accomplished as I feel, it’s as if the things I don’t have, the things other young women my age don’t have, are the things that define us.

Whenever I see family members after months of not seeing them, the first questions they ask are: "So, do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you see marriage in the near future?" "What about babies?" Most times, I am never asked about my education or my job. Why are the things that are actually accomplishments overlooked, but things like marriage and babies are deemed the most important?

I went to a small private high school, graduating with only 32 people. Out of those 32 people, I would say at least 20 of them are in serious relationships, married, expecting babies, or already have them. Every time I open my Facebook app, there's another name to add to one of those lists. And here I am. If you had asked me a year ago if I felt like I was missing out, my answer would have been “absolutely.” I felt like maybe I wasn’t doing my 20s right; why was everyone I grew up with married and settling down, and I can’t tell you what I’m having for dinner tonight? Why does it seem like the things like families, are all anyone aims for? Why is it so weird that I am the age I am, and marriage and children aren’t on my radar?

I feel that recently I’ve found the answer to some of those questions. Unlike the people I went to high school with, I got out of the small town we all grew up in. And since then, I’ve moved a couple more times. I have experienced things most of them have not.

Unlike most of the people I went to high school with, my goal isn’t marriage and a family in my 20s. I want adventures, new experiences, new people, to never stop learning and being educated. I want to know myself, and love myself the most out of everyone else, and to never let another human being define me.

I have seen marriages and relationships fail-- maybe that’s what scares me the most about a commitment like marriage and children. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, two people get married and are so in love, and a couple years later, they don’t even know each other anymore and the love is gone. And they don’t know which way the difference between up and down.

The education I’ve gotten, the degrees I’ve earned, the memories I’ve made, the experiences I’m living, and the experiences I have yet to live; those things won’t wake up one day and decide they don’t love me anymore. Let’s be real, they can’t. All of those things, they are mine, forever, and nothing can change that or take those things away from me.

So, the next time you want to ask me “No boyfriend?” and be disappointed by my answer, instead, how about asking me about the last 6-7 years of college? Ask me about my (semi) recent move, my first apartment, my friends, my family. Ask me about me. Because I’m not bothered (anymore) about not having a serious boyfriend, a husband, or a baby on the way; so why should you be?