From the moment I stepped foot onto The University of Texas campus, I’ve had a plan. I’ve known exactly what I wanted to do with my life and the exact steps I was going to take to get there. Now, four years later, my graduation date looms in the distance and I find myself questioning every single aspect of my “plan.”
As I prepare to enter the real world, I find myself overburdened with the stresses of what I am expected to do. I am 22-year-old woman in Texas, which means the timeline of my life has been pre-determined for me by southern society. I am supposed to graduate from college in four years, land my dream job shortly after and be married with children by the time I’m 27. That’s five years from now. I’ve always been one of those “Pssh, I’ll do it my way, the rules of society don’t phase me” girls, but as I watch my childhood friends get engaged one-by-one, while other friends land these huge career opportunities, I think to myself “Crap. What’s taking me so long?!” All of a sudden, I am carrying these huge expectations on my shoulders, and to put it bluntly, it is stressing me the f— out.
The pressure to be in a relationship and/or start a career is inescapable. It used to be that women were just expected to marry and start a happy family. But now, the bar is raised as more and more women are graduating from college with a Bachelor’s degree, surpassing men, in fact, according to the Pew Research Center. Over the holidays, family and friends constantly asked me two questions: “What are you going to do after graduation?” and “Do you have a boyfriend yet?” to which I would smile and politely excuse myself while I ripped my hair out in the next room. I log on to Facebook and see that, yet again, one of my high school friends is engaged or expecting. I hop on Pinterest and scroll through pages and pages of wedding dresses, wedding cakes, wedding photography, wedding rings, wedding DIY, wedding makeup, etc. Out of my six – count ’em, six – closest friends, I am the only one that is not in a serious relationship. Three of those friends have graduated and are heading to grad school, and two have jobs set for themselves in the Northeast. It seems that everyone around me is beginning their “adult” lives – except for me. Does this mean that there is something wrong with me, or that I’m just being a slacker?
I’m not alone in these worries; I have other female friends that are equally stressed about the same predicament. My guy friends, however, don’t seem to be phased by their next stage of life. Maybe the guys I know are just naturally laid back. Or, just maybe, men don’t face the same expectations as women do upon graduation from college.
You see, women have deadlines. If you are a woman in Texas that isn’t married by the time you’re 30-years-old, well, there must be something horribly wrong with you. You must be a weirdo with no social skills that stays home with her cat all day. And then there’s the whole hormone thing. You’re having a baby after 30?! Is that even possible?! But a 30-year-old man that isn’t married? Well, he probably just hasn’t found the right woman yet. Don’t worry though, dude. Take your time.
These expectations are raised because of southern culture’s tendency to marry young. Based off recent studies, women in Texas marry for the first time around age 25 (and from what I’ve seen, much sooner that that), while women in the Northeast marry closer to 30. Coincidentally, southern states also have much higher divorce rates than northern states, which is a whole different conversation that I won’t get into right now.
In the grand scheme of life, 22-years-old is basically still childhood. Let’s face it, you don’t always make the best decisions in your early-twenties (vodka sprites on Sixth St. can cloud one’s judgment.) How am I supposed to have possibly the two biggest decisions of my life – a career and a family – chosen by the time I graduate from college? It’s madness to expect such a thing.
Yes, there are women who manage to achieve all of these things straight out of college and to them, I tip my hat (I also highly encourage them to buy a lottery ticket.) But for me, this isn’t the case. I don’t have a boyfriend that I intend to marry in a few years. I haven’t landed my dream job yet. I will admit that I don’t have a solid plan right now. Not even a semblance of one, and that’s okay.
Maybe I’ll travel after graduation. Maybe I’ll move back home and enjoy some time off and save money. Maybe I’ll casually date around until I’m 29, start my own business and become a millionaire. The point is, the way my life pans out is my choice, and even if it doesn’t go according to society’s “plan”, it can still be rewarding and fulfilling. That is my plan.
P.S. If you haven’t checked out Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TedX talk on feminism, do so immediately. (Yes, this is the speech referenced in Beyonce’s “***Flawless”).