can't wait to get going, but not quite ready to leave.

i am not in a hurry to grow up. i like things poetic, and simple. i like going to bonfires, where the trees are silhouetted by the flames and the embers float up to flirt with the stars, bright against a midnight sky. Where the voices of your friends echo past the water and everyone is sticky from the melted marshmallow of the delicious smore goodness.

but it is ingrained in girls from birth that we are all supposed to grow up, have a fairy-tale type romance, get married, and live happily ever after in the american dream. we are fed disney movies, and from the time that we understand what is going on, we want that happy ending.

so it's no surprise that i'm reaching the point where my dreams of the future stretch past living on my own and experiencing freedom and proving to the world what i can do to finding that man, falling in love, and just living life. i want to fall in love. i want to pick out a diamond. i want to plan a wedding, to get married, to live happily ever after. to save up money to buy our own house. to have children and teach them the wonders of the world. to grow old with the one i love and carved my life out with.

it's looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. because i know that life doesn't always happen that way, and even if it looks that way from the outside, that it is never, ever easy.

but that's the age i'm at. my friends are getting married and having kids. they are picking out their diamonds. the television i watch, however infrequent it is that i turn it on, shows commercials that depict that vision.

and i don't feel this way all the time. i mean, the desire to have that life is there, but i don't always crave it all the time. some days i just feel it more than others. for example: laid-back saturdays like today, when i actually have time to turn on the tv.

and sometimes this is the biggest argument that God and i have. or, correction: that i have with God. because as He is telling me to trust Him, and that it will all work out in the end, i'm demanding explanations for the reasoning behind things that happen to me. i'm demanding timelines, and that isn't how God works. sometimes i'm so stubborn that i drive myself crazy.