One of my good friends finished college. Three cheers for her, I say! Way to get it done in four years.

Last night, though, this same good friend also got engaged to her boyfriend of two years. Um. Congratulations?

Yeah, yeah, so they’re in love, whatever. I get it.

I was in love once. I never actually talked to the guy, but it was there. I’m still a little baffled by her annoucement of love and commitment at such a tender age as 22. Maybe it’s me, but a lot of the time, I still feel 14. I just have so much to learn about myself before I can conceive of taking the black – and – white plunge.

And before she started dating her boyfriend — oops, i mean her fiance — my friend was right there with me, braiding my hair in the photobooth with an economy bag of fun – size Snickers and a stack of trashy magazines.

Now, she has the Big Job, the Big Ring, the Big Life, and I’m wondering what to do with all these issues of Jane and feeling like I should take the training wheels of my bike.

Is it just me, or does the prospect of marriage seem insane at this point in time? My own parents and grandparents were married at this age, but today things have loosened up a bit. Maybe it’s because we’re living longer, but I feel like forty is a good age for marriage — live half of your life single, half of it married. The way things are going, I’ll probably won’t feel forty until I’m sixty.

At least there is a potentially fun wedding to look foward to — now I that I don’t have to pay my older brother to steal me drinks.