While at my roommate's home in Connecticut this weekend, her mom told us that classic story of "how I met your father" and it broached what I thought was a very interesting topic. Her mother, it turns out, had met her father at college and married him soon after, inciting a discussion about the probability that we would meet our future husbands within the next couple of years. Sure, this topic was undeniably girlish and possibly influenced by the fact that half of us had recently seen the Katherine Heigl comedy "27 Dresses", but it also got the wheels turning in my head for this post. I began to wonder, how many of my peers truly expect to meet The One any day now? I know that most of us college kids are now at a point where we are more independent than we've ever been in our lives and adulthood is fast approaching if it hasn't already been reached, but are we already at that point where marriage is a consideration for the near future? With prom and my senior trip still fresh in my memory, I am doubtful that within a couple years I could be ready for the ultimate commitment to another person.I decided to do a little research based on this topic and here is what I found: according to the US Census Bureau, the average age at first marriage for a man and a woman is 27 and 25 years-old. I know this is only an average and not true for everyone, but that doesn't make five years from now seem any further away. Another somewhat scary revelation--all three members of Hanson, the teen crooners of "Mmmbop" that seemed to grow up alongside our generation, have all tied the knot. The youngest, Zac, is 21 and has already been married for a year. The oldest, Isaac, is a mere 26. I know that using the Hanson brothers as a comparison might seem to be a bit of a stretch, but for those of us who grew up with their sweetly innocent pop hits, it is a surprising dose of reality. For those who are nostalgic, here is a link to People's short video documentary of the band all grown up.
I know that many of us will spend half our time at college figuring out what we want to do with the rest of our lives, but will we also be figuring out who it is we want to spend those lives with? I suppose the statistics don't have to mean anything if you don't want them to, but as tomorrow marks the beginning of another week, I think it's worth being aware of the fact that any one of these days could be the start of the story we tell around the dinner table in 20 years. Seize the day, seize youth, because every day we are getting a little older than we realize.
1 comment:
if you had asked me a year ago, two years ago, three, even four years ago, i would have chuckled at the thought of me getting married. i had to find the man first, afterall. and i was SO far off from that...or so i thought. i wondered if i'd ever meet anyone i'd fall so deeply in love that i'd want to spend the rest of my life with him.
i was almost finished college when i first spoke to the boy i'd marry. i had never imagined when i first heard his voice that it would be the only voice i'd want to wake up to every day for the rest of my life. it all happened so quickly and so suddenly that sometimes i have to take a step back and realize how lucky i am to have met my life companion, my very best friend.
we're not married yet, but i do anxiously look forward to the day i can call him my husband. and as i sit here watching 'father of the bride' (that is coincidently on tv) i realize that one of the happiest days of my life my be one of the saddest days of my daddy's.
so just when you think you're so far away from thinking about weddings and engagement rings, think again, because believe me...it can happen a lot sooner than you think.
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