Why the Rush?

(Little Carrie & Big reference...)

Life moves undeniably fast. It's scary to think about but with all of life's demands it's easy to blink and miss it. We've all heard that saying time and time again as we're constantly reminded that 'life is too short'. Despite hearing it though, how many of us actually believe it? We've all been in that situation where we've done so much in a single week that we've barely realised that we're back to Monday again and we can hardly remember what it was we'd been doing the entire time. But where does this stop?

Since turning the grand old age of 22 (old in the loosest of senses), I feel like there's more of a rush than ever. My Masters course that I started in September is very nearly at the final dissertation stage. I've moved out and will be making a big move again come September. I'm thinking about how close the 'real world', the one outside of my comfortable educational bubble truly is. A massive amount has happened in a comparatively short space of time and it's utterly terrifying. There's other pressures as well though.

Almost daily, Facebook churns out the news of engagements, babies and impending marriages. People that I remember sitting in the primary school assembly hall with, bedecked in our checked summer dresses and white frilly socks have little frilly socked humans of their own now. People are making life long commitments, making walks down aisles and (excuse the Beyoncé reference...) putting rings on it. That's not to say in any sense that these people have rushed into things, they've made conscious decisions that make total sense in their lives and I'm hugely happy for them. But where does that leave the rest of us?

I was chatting to Tom the other evening, joking that I'm one if the few girls from our school year that hasn't either reproduced or been asked those four immortal words on bended knee, joking that I'm still very much on the shelf (which may I add has now become a running joke in our household...). Thinking back on that conversation, when we strip away all the jokes and the horror on Toms face as I blurted out some Victorianised notion of the teenage bride, a mother by the age of twenty, it's scary to think that I've been conditioned to think that way. I'm twenty two years old, not some 80 year old spinster whose never found love. I'm in a long term relationship with someone that I intend to stay with and not on the shelf in any way shape or form. In fact I've been brought up to think very sensibly and logically about things, yes, my parents themselves married fairly young, but in the early 90's with little one year old me to think about marriage made sense at that time in their lives. Right now, for me, marriage and babies doesn't fit into my lifestyle, but that's in no way a bad thing, so why is there a little bit of me that buys into the notion that there's some kind of time limit on things, a ticking time bomb that will detonate by the age of 30 rendering me a dreaded 'old maid'.

Every wedding that I've been to in the past few years, regardless of whether Dan has joined me or not, the dinner conversation always evolves into the same phrase-'ooh, Sophs, you'll be next'. Here's a curveball for all you family members. Numerous weddings later, still no ring. That is in no way a bad thing. It's not me that's put this time limit on myself, it's everyone else, and I've unknowingly bought into it hook, line and sinker. Dan and I may have been together for over 5 years, but we've never actually lived together. Where is the sense in an engagement that spans 250 miles and two different cities? You got it, there's very little point. We're not even mid 20's yet and people have us imaginatively shacked up in a house with 4 children and a Labrador. The prospect of a walk down the aisle is a far off prospect at best, that's not to say it won't happen, it might, it might not, but why should I feel like it should have to so imminently just because people have already planned which kitchen appliance they're going to get us as a wedding gift?

I would like to think that I'll be a bit more settled once that infamous question is eventually popped. I'd like to think that I'll be some way towards the career that I've worked so incredibly hard for, somewhere that makes me happy. Of course there's no denying that I would love to get married and who knows whether my feelings on children will change in the future (for those that know me well, I'm possibly one of the least naturally maternal females you could ever wish to meet) but for the time being, I'm happy with where I am right now. I don't know what the future holds, I mean, who honestly can say that they do, but for now I'm quite happy that the hugest decisions in my life revolve around what I can cook for tea, not menus and guest lists or the preferable brand of milk formula. So for now, in the immortal words of a certain Ms. Bradshaw, all I can do is sit and wonder, what's the rush?