i do... but now? not so much.

I just graduated college in May and already I am feeling the pressure to grow up and become, as many people put it, "a real person". I mean, wasn't I a real person before? Apparently not.

But in this new thing we like to call "being a real person", I have found that people have already begun to judge me. They judge me because I still live with my parents, they judge me because I am bartending and working for my Dad, and they judge me because I am not actively pursuing a career in this moment in time. When I try to explain to them that I am just taking the time because I am going to Spain for four months in the fall, they tend to ignore my rationale and give me the general "oh I see, what are you going to do there?" question. Must I have a job in Spain in order to make it legitimate? Can't studying abroad for fun be enough for some people? The best, however, is when I am talking to someone who has known me for a while; these people tend to ask questions about when I plan to go to law school or grad school, since that was my plan for, oh I don't know, all my life until now. When I explain that I don't want to go to either right now because I have no idea what I even want to do, I usually get a taken back "oh I see" in response. Sometimes I just want to look at people and say, "hey I am 22 and in no rush to get moving, but after Spain I swear I will conform and figure something out".

And what I really don't understand is why everyone who has been dating for two or more years feels the need to put a ring on it right now and settle down. This is the time of our lives that we are figuring out who we are and where exactly we want to be. We are constantly looking for bigger and better options, and have no idea where we might be in six months, let alone a year or two.