Help! I don't want to grow up!

Bro and Me. After my phase of stuffing crayons up my nose(!)

Is it just me, or is everyone going on about weddings & scary grown-up things at the moment?!

I mean, I'm 21 and although I am in a long term relationship and have been for nearly 5 years- (yes, I feel queasy too!) there seems to be this overhanging pressure to start 'thinking about my future', and that what matters in my life now, may not matter as much in ten years’ time, 'when you will have probably had two children dear and be forever bone tired.' Right well umm what if I don't know if I want that right now, I mean can we give my brain and womb some time to think this over?! This obviously starts the whole Bridget Jones notion of accepting a life of 'spinsterhood and eventually be(ing) eaten by Alsatians’--it's not fair! Can we not all just stay the lovely, and devoid of responsibility age of five and watch The Muppets and shove crayons up our noses for a large portion of the afternoon instead?!...at least, that's what I was doing at the age of five, insert your own appropriate variation if you prefer.



Just earlier this week, my boyfriend and I went for an informal but nice meal at the restaurant I work at on one of my evenings off, and numerous colleagues joked and teased that ‘The ring is hidden in the Pavlova love!’ You see the thing is, because we’ve been together so long and are obviously comfortable with one another; we seem to have been in the line of fire recently with jokes of any upcoming engagements or plans for children. Awkward. Now if I were a particularly sensitive soul, I would have excused myself from the table and hidden in the loos sobbing from sheer embarrassment. Luckily, the boyf and I managed to see the funny side and got in our banter zones and gave hopefully as good as we got. Does this mean I want jokes on whether I may or may not be getting married in the foreseeable future to continue? Hell no! I feel as though I’m being expected to grow quicker than what is natural. Like someone throwing a sodding watering can full of emotional growth ‘Miracle Grow’in my face and saying ‘Ha! Take that. You will want to do these things now because it will make me happier.’ Deep breath.



Now, I've never been to a wedding...that's right, NEVER, and apparently this is some sort of atrocity. I'll be honest, I do feel a little left out. I mean do these people who are cropping up having weddings everywhere just intentionally making me miss out on all the fun of the bumbling best man speeches and the forever over-marzipanned cake? Yes, I've decided that over-marzipanned is an acceptable phrase. God I hate marzipan. Or, is it that I am just on the cusp of a decade of receiving invitations to numerous of my friends’ weddings because I am 'at that age', where people will be inevitably starting to settle down and turn into beige wearing, serious adults, with like proper jobs and faster cars, and like mortgages. I'm still not 100% certain what a mortgage is, but I know I have to get one at some point. This uncertainty scares me.



I should mention that I am not adverse to most of the things I have just mentioned apart from the mortgage sorting out thing and becoming serious…or ever, lord help me, being a beige wearer. However, you may be shocked to understand that I am quite traditional in terms of love and the declaration of it publicly when both adults are ready with the whole stable marriage thing. I do not believe that it is ‘just a piece of paper’, but have absolutely no qualms with the people that do. People should do what makes them happy, and I’ve never been one to say no to the excuse of having a massive celebration! What I do have a problem with is the sense of pressure I know for a fact many women of my age are starting to feel in terms of being told to do all of these things quickly, whether in a relationship or not. This pressure comes from rom coms, friends, family and then sometimes just the fear of ending up alone. Many girls do not want to feel that they are in a permanent state of collecting dust on a shelf through not being in a relationship, but equally do not want to feel hurried into anything drastic. Give us balance puuurrlease!



Call me crazy, but is it not okay to just feel that a lot of us just need to simmer down a tad?! I can only speak on behalf of my own feelings on the subject obviously, and in contrast to perhaps my psychotic and premature reservations, there will be a lot of women who are massively excited to reach these (for me) dizzying mature heights where growing up and doing all these crazy things like marriage and children is fabulous. And that’s great! In fact, I truly am a little jealous of your serene attitude to growing up and your composure. It’s just not me, not yet. 

On speaking to fellow KU students on the matter, the general consensus was that people did feel pressure to grow up too quickly.  Nayiri Keshishi, 3rd Year Law student commented on how she felt '...there is a certain pressure on people around our age to conform and behave in the 'right' way...'.  Where others I spoke to commented on the age at which we selected certain subjects at school and how we were expected to know what we wanted to do in life from this young age, for example GCSE'S.

Let me be the girl who will watch Disney way past the point where it’s socially acceptable for me to do so. Let me make the infantile mistake of eating too many jelly beans before a roller-coaster ride, then seeing a repeat of the colours of the rainbow as it were on my free-fall down the tracks- vomcano, followed by people telling me, ‘I told you that was a bad idea’. Yup. So totally worth it though. Screw you guys, I’m going to go win a teddy bear…