NOT ready

So I am currently living in high wedding/engagement season.... and I just realized something... I'm NOT ready for any of that.

Which really suprises me. After my sister got engaged (her wedding is in approx 1 month! Holla!), I really started to feel the pressure, and though she is 2 years my senior, I felt that I was ready for that kind of committment. I wanted the ring, picking out the bridesmaids dresses, picking a venue, thinking of things I would do differently from my sister's wedding (though it will be beautiful, I'm different/have a different style), etc.

Then one of my best friends got engaged a year later (I introduced them... awwwwwww), and while I couldn't be happier for her, I was thrust back into the wanting and feeling like I needed the engagement... immediately, if not sooner.

THEN my cousin got engaged a few month after. Again, I'm happy as can be for her and her fiance, and their new condo... but now my engagement fever had come into full swing. Not only was I feeling the pressure for myself, I had (and still have) family asking my BF why he hasn't proposed yet... not exactly what I would call subtle.

However, I have had quite an "ah-ha" moment, as Oprah likes to call it, these last few weeks. While yes, I still want to get married one day (hopefully before I'm 30), I am NOT in any way ready. I don't want a morgage... I don't want the white picked fence in the suburbs... I don't want the 2.5 kids and dog... at least not yet. I'm sure that one day in the future I will, but I'm only 23. I remember spouting off about how I was anxious to get engaged and all that jazz and people would say, "you are only 23... what's your rush?" I never paid much attention to it, until now. I honestly sat there and asked myself, what is the rush? Do I know for sure what I want at the young age of 23?

I know that I am still growing and figuring things out for myself (life, career, relationship, health, etc). Why complicate my stuggles with planning a wedding? I have to remind myself, it isn;t a race. Whoever gets there first doesn't always win. What matters is that I know myself inside and out and pick the right person to spend my life with. While I believe in divorce as aan absolute last resort (if your life is miserable, don't stay and make your kids/significant other suffer), I don't plan on it coming to that (of course no one does). I want to make sure I make the right decision... not just because everyone else may be ready for a step like that, but because I am ready for a step like that. (Stat... in the U.S. 37% of people who get married between ages 20-24 get divorced....)

It is common sense really, it just takes me longer to catch on I guess.

Guess my perfect ring will have to wait... until I'm ready :-)