"They settle down as man and wife to solve the riddle called married life..."

This past summer, two people I went to high school with were married. Then within the last few months, two of my friends got engaged. There are low-to-mid twenty-somethings getting engaged and wed all around me, and it's got me thinking - am I missing something?

I thought the trend over the last twenty years or so was to get married a bit later in life (30s, at least). That's what I had seen, and I was fine with that. I'm not saying that people who are making the earlier decision are making a bad choice. I'm sure for some people it is perfectly timed, and other people will realize that no amount of time or waiting would make their union work. I just think that there is something I'm not seeing.

Growing up, I remember hearing girls talk about the perfect wedding and how many kids they wanted. Some people even had baby names picked out and ready to go. I never thought about those things. From a fairly young age, I was focused on making a life for myself. I wanted a successful career (and to me, success does not mean $$$) and to establish myself as an independent person before even considering joining up with someone else.

Does this make me a bad person? Should I not want to make a life for myself rather than establishing a life with someone else? I'm not saying I never want to get married, but I think that it's more important to be your own person and understand your life direction first. Otherwise, how can you hope to be successful as a unit?

Help me out here, folks. What are your thoughts on the younger marraige issue? What do you see as a good age range for marraige? Does age even matter, or is it more about the people? And please tell me, am I wrong?

*blog title taken from Cole Porter's "It's De-Lovely"*

"525,600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?"

Another year, a higher number, but what really has changed?

Yesterday was my birthday and while I don't claim to be a fountain of knowledge at 22, I wanted to take a moment to share how my life has changed over the last year.

This time last year I had finished midterms in my second-to-last college semester and was pretty carefree. I hadn't started to freak out about finding a job yet because I still had a full semester ahead of me. Life with my roommate was pretty fun. My sister just had a baby boy. All of my commitments made visiting NY more difficult than in previous semesters. My part-time job was going well (QU Learning Center was my life for three years), the campus newspaper was doing really well (QUChronicle.com) and my personal life held its usual amount of soap opera-esque drama. It was business as usual for a student with senioritis - procrastinating, hanging out with friends, and wanting to both get out quickly and stay in college forever.

Fast forward to the present. I live in my own apartment. My nephew just celebrated his first birthday. I have a job here at the wonderful New Haven Register and with the full-time work came full-time bills and responsibilities. My personal life has less drama than it did last year, but with me it's always an adventure. And I cannot begin to tell you, as bizarre as it sounds, how much I miss midterms. Well, maybe not the exams exactly, moreso the college life. I didn't know how good I had it.

I've always been a fairly responsible person but now I think I take life more seriously. I pay bills as soon as they come in to avoid late fees; I try not to use my credit card unless I have the money to pay it off; I don't spend on myself very often with the exception of food, which I even try to budget accordingly. I try to get home as often as I can to spend more time with my family, but work and life don't allow for as much of that as I'd like. I don't go out like I once did (although I was never a huge party animal, I had my fun). Many of my friends are either still in school or also doing the real world thing so it's tough to coordinate schedules.

Even though aspects of my life may have seemed easier last year, I'm glad for what the year brought me. As long as I continue to learn about life, I think I'm moving in the right direction.

How has your life changed in the past year? Sharing is caring, folks, so comment away!

*Blog title taken from the Broadway musical Rent's "Seasons of Love"*