Yes, I'm still single.

I repeat that sentence again and again at family functions, holiday gatherings, and get-togethers with friends and family. I am basically interrogated about school, work, and most of all, my love life. Why is my singleness such a hot topic? People are more interested in my perpetual singleness than what I plan to do with the rest of my life.

I always get the question along the lines of, "So, you're still single, huh?" This question used to really bother me because being single didn't used to seem like a choice, I never seemed to feel fulfilled and happy being single. My friends and friends of friends, family members, parents' friends' kids all have significant others, and sometimes I'm afraid my family members are worried that I'm going to die alone.

I have finally come to accept the fact that, yes, I am still single. When friends and family now ask, I say with confidence and reassurance that yes, I am still single and I am extremely OK with it.

I have never felt so confident and independent. Being a woman in college, I am forced to do things all on my own because I no longer have my parents do them for me and I don't have a man to help me either. This made me grow up, and it may have been hard initially, but I now cannot imagine having someone assisting me with everything.

Being still single is one of the best things that happened to my social life in college. I am able to be friends with anyone I choose, I can go out when I want and not have to report to anyone, lastly I can speak to anyone I want and not have to worry about it. I have made countless friends, some by bonding over the fact that we were the only single people. I do not need a relationship to define my happiness, I don't need to be rescued by a man, because I have come to be an independent woman.

While I still may envy my friends and family who are in happy loving relationships -- they are getting engaged and married, having children and building families of their own -- I know that God's plan for me is still in the works, and right now it is meant for me to be single. One day my day will come and I will meet that person I am meant to spend my life with.

Mandy Hale wrote in "The Single Woman: Life, Love and a Dash of Sass": "If you learn to really sit with loneliness and embrace it for the gift that it is...an opportunity to get to know you, to learn how strong you really are, to depend on non but you for your happiness...you will realize that a little loneliness goes a long way in creating a richer, deeper, more vibrant and colorful you."

So until the day love happens for me, I will continue to be a confident, independent, happy, 21-year-old still single woman, who is still writing my story.