For a long time, since I don't even know when, I have focused- even obsessed- over the idea of having a boyfriend. I had all of these plans that I would be married by a certain time in my life, have kids after reaching a certain milestone in my academic career, and build a house with this ginormous amount of money I was going to have by the time I was 21.

Well, now I'm 22, nowhere near finished with my academic career, have no money, and don't even have time for anyone other than myself. I have spent SO much of my time worrying about all the wrong things that I forgot to worry about myself. I didn't realize that I needed to worry about myself until my mental health started playing a huge role in my life. A diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder and a big moment of realizing the guys who cheated on me were proposing to the girl they cheated on me with later, I started working on worrying about myself.

I started self-reflecting, growing as a person, becoming someone I liked to wake up to and could live with without complete disappointment during the day... these were things that I let consume me instead of thoughts on why I wasn't "good enough" for him. Next thing I knew, I was about a year and a half in without worrying about a guy. It was in that moment of realization that I learned focusing on myself was probably the healthiest thing I had done in my entire life.

Even after that point of my life, I found myself in a relationship with someone where instead of continuing to adjust what I wanted in life and for myself to fit around the relationship (like I normally would do), I decided I had to stop allowing myself to stray from who I was and wanted to become. Rather than giving up parts of me that I had worked so hard to develop and build up over the last couple of years, I decided if someone didn't want to adjust themselves for me, it wasn't meant to be.

I say all of this to say, focusing on who you are, eliminating the parts of you that you dislike, striving to be who you want to be, aiming for what you want to accomplish, and knowing what you want as your own is such a rewarding and never-ending process. You have to be able to love who you are before you can fully allow someone else to love you.

And sure, even now the cute Instagram pictures of couples and the cold weather cuddles has me thinking about the idea of attempting the dating life- but let's be honest, I don't actually want to take part in the efforts of developing and maintaining a relationship with anyone. It's SO MUCH WORK! Don't get me wrong, kudos to anyone who is making it work with their significant other.

But personally, I have no idea where my life is going to take me. I just now figured out the professional direction I want to go in, but I have no clue where it could take me geographically. Not to mention that guys at my age are just mostly annoying when it comes to dating. They really don't want a relationship; they just don't want to be alone or they just want the benefits. And I'm sorry (not really), but I don't have time to waste my time.

When the time is right, when it's meant to all come together and some guy sees me walking past them and they realize they just got to know who I am- that's the time I look forward to. So until then, I'm just going to continue to learn, grow, develop myself professionally, and be the best person I can be as a friend/sister/aunt/daughter and call it a day!