Unlike a lot of other girls in my laurel’s class, I had no desire to get married and have kids while in college. I had always been my own person, not really fitting in with anyone at Church as my homemade skirts and short spiky hair contrasted sharply with their $250 dollar outfits and primly dyed locks. These were the girls who couldn’t bear to cut their hair past their shoulders, I was the kind of girl who drag raced with her co-workers after she got off work at 3am(I had a job working as a cab dispatcher from 7pm-3am my senior year of high school. What can I say? It paid well, and I needed money for college…… And I won, which was awesome.).

When the topic of raising a family first came up in my Laurel’s Young Women class, I was taught that finding your eternal companion was your top priority once you graduated from High School. We were given a list of traits that our future husband should have, with only two thing on it. 1. Priesthood holder 2. Returned missionary. While first glancing at a list that I realize was meant to teach us not to set the bar too high, I wondered if we were being taught to accept the first man that our young hearts found. So I tucked the list away, confused and unsure.

Years later, after I moved away from home to go to college, I still hadn’t found that boy. I wondered and berated myself for a long time, sure that the problem lay with me. “Why is it?” I wondered “That I can’t find someone when everyone else seems to have no problem?”. All of the girls I had gone to Young Women with were married, some for years. While lying in bed one night, wondering and praying for guidance in this particular area, I would like to say that a feeling of overwhelming peace and an almost silent whisper comforted me. What really happened was I closed my prayer, and went to sleep feeling better, but unsatisfied. The real clarity came later during, funnily enough, a haircut.

My sister, who had recently graduated from cosmetology school, loved to play with my hair because I would let her do almost anything with it. One day, while sitting and joking with my sister as chopped away, something finally clicked. I wasn’t that girl. I wasn’t the kind of girl to get married right out of high school anymore than I was the kind of girl who could settle for shoulder length mono-colored hair. I wasn’t a short-list girl. I had fought all through my teens to be my own person and I would continue to be that person, and trust in the Lord that there was someone out there that would fit with me.

It’s been two years since that realization, and boys have come and gone. Some peacefully, some not so peacefully, and one with heartbreak. I still have times when, even though I’m only 23, I feel like a failure in my Church for not being married yet.

And yet, I truly believe that someone is out there. Someone who will make me feel loved and appreciated, and who will make me laugh. Someone who won't let me be who I am, but who will love who I am.

And now whenever I start to feel depressed I can always count on a new haircut to make me feel better.