True Life: I'm an Old Maid

People have told me my entire life that I act older than my age or that I am an old soul.

Every once in a while, I have the startling realization that they are right, but lately I've been wondering if it's a good thing or not.

From the time I was 16 years old (give or take) I've acted like I was a young adult. And now that I am a young adult I think I have progressed to acting like a middle-aged woman stuck in the body of a 23-year-old.

I'm not going to say that I grew up quickly because I am southern, but, okay, maybe that is what I'm saying.

Women in the south are held to such high standards from the moment we are born. We have to be good wives, good housekeepers and good mothers, and we have to be intelligent (well, not always) and dainty, but still sturdy.

How is a woman supposed to be a child with those standards looming overhead?

Oh and did I mention that we're expected to be all of those things by our early 20s?

Raini, 18,  was featured on MTV's True Life: I'm a Southern Belle

As investigated in this episode, there are plenty of modern-day southern women that still feel this pressure.

I am one of them.

Where I'm from I might as well be an old maid, because I am 23 and unmarried with no shiny engagement rings in my near future.

In the south, I might as well be the old lady with cats, except I hate cats.

Now I'm not saying that every woman is raised that way and it is certainly less intense in the new south, but in our culture there is always going to be this underlying dialogue about whether we (women) fit our gender role. This goes for men too.

So now that I'm in Savannah, which for me does not seem southern at all, I might take a break from being an old maid and allow myself to be 23 and carefree.

If you're an unmarried young southern woman, bless your heart, we're riding a rough road.