And Friday makes 8

The past two months have been a crazy hectic time for our little campus here. People often tease about how many people come here to get married and crack jokes like "I'll be lucky if I get out of here alive." Translation: "I'll be lucky if I get out of here not engaged." It's always been funny, but never before has it been this true, at least not as long as I can remember. In the past two months, eight couples have been engaged and two of the girls are dear friends of mine, and most of the others I know well too. This last week was especially crazy. Three girls got engaged in three consecutive days. It was almost as if the campus held its breath on Saturday waiting to see who number four would be. It turned out that three was the magic number this week. In addition two close friends from high school have gotten engaged recently, as well as my cousin. Not to mention all my friends who have already gotten married since I first knew them. In the month of May alone, I have, on consecutive Saturdays, my own graduation, my cousin's wedding, a wedding in which my friend asked me to be a bridesmaid and a wedding in which my friend asked me to be her 'personal attendant.' It's going to be a busy month.

I was talking to a friend and joked with him that I feel as though I know enough about wedding planning from these friends that I could go into professional wedding consulting. I think I missed my calling. Surely it is wedding planning and not the ministry.

On top of all this, three of my closest friends from my freshman year dorm have been married and are already pregnant. The first one is due in three weeks. As if it wasn't enough to feel as though I can't relate with a married woman when I have never even had a relationship, I now have to learn how to be close to a new mama.

Please don't misunderstand. It's not that I'm pining away for a husband, or that I want the way that my life is now to change, it's just that things are changing. In high school, it was a sign of maturity that I had never had a boyfriend, or at least that's what people told me. Now it just makes me feel like a Toys-R-Us kid saying "I don't want to grow up." I'm not jealous, and I'm not just saying that because I want people to think better of me. I know what jealousy is like. I've felt it before. What I feel now is not that. It's something new, something different. If it's anything negative at all, it's the feeling of fear. Fear of being left behind. Fear that my friends and I will become so different after graduation that we won't understand each other. On one hand, I know that we are friends and nothing will ever change that fact, on the other, I know that even though we will remain friends, things will be very, very different, whether they are married or not or moms or not.

I understand that it almost seems like I am feeling sorry for myself. I'm not, don't worry. But I am thinking through my life. I am struggling to live here and now. I have a hard enough time with not daydreaming and with loosing touch with reality. It only gets more difficult when my dreams are my friends' reality.