When I was little, I did not know much about my parents lives before me.
Obviously, in my child-aged brain, they were married before they had me but that is all I really knew.
As I grew up, I learned a little more about where my parents were born, where they grew up and what their college years were like.
More college students are postponing the walk down the aisle.
I had an idea of what their lives were like before me, but in my mind, I never thought that I would really reach that age. I would be a kid forever because it takes a long time to become a grown up.
As I asked more questions later on down the road, I found out about their dating lives and some details about what they wanted to be when they grew up.
My mom wanted a man with character and morals, while my dad wanted a challenge, someone who he really connected to. It did not matter how different they were, and still are, but that they wanted to spend their lives together.
Say yes to the career, not the dress.
All of my aunts and uncles grew up, went to college, graduated and got married. My parents were engaged shortly after they graduated.
Until fairly recently, this was how life worked in my mind. And this was how my life was going to work out too.
Now I do not know if the people that I am surrounded with at home are the usual case, but for a majority of the people that I knew growing up, marriage is pretty much expected after college.
That is, unless you plan to go on a long-term service trip or you have too many cats.
That aside, that is just what is done.
More men and women in college are deciding to live their lives, have fun and find their careers instead of getting married right away.
So people who knew me before college must be really baffled by me.
Throw a non-Mennonite college into the equation of all of this, and before you know it, people are asking questions.
Thankfully, there seems to be a new trend within the majority of our population that is changing the way that this system seemed to work before.
Again, it could have everything to do with where I am from, but I see it as a shift in society and the way we want things to work.
Pursue you dreams, score that dream job, date casually if you so desire because I think that the pressure to marry young is changing.
Our generation is changing that.
It could have to do with the fact that we are all broke and too lazy, as I am sure we have all heard before, but I think we should use this to our advantage.
If you are the lucky person who found the one you want to be with for the rest of your life and want to be married ASAP, that is awesome.
You have something that you should be grateful for.
But for those of us who are not quite there yet or who thought that they were but actually are not, I think that time is increasingly on your side.
We should be realistic with ourselves and embrace this new trend. You may thank yourself.
