Why Wait?

A commenter left me a question in an old post. She writes:

I know how you feel on this. I can't bring myself to even tell my mother half of the religious activities I partake in and get great joy out of (but that's facilitated by going to school 1.5k miles away). I too am looking at orders that have education apostolates; this is because I feel called to teach. I also want an order that still wears a habit. It doesn't have to be a very traditional habit with a scapular and everything, but please let me wear a veil. If you feel so strongly about your call to religious life, why are you putting it off until after you go to graduate school? I am not sure that I want to wait to finish graduate school. (I have about 3 years left.)

I feel an urgency to find an order. I am very scared that the longer I stay in this world, the less I will want to enter the world that God is leading me to. I don't want to be a slave to this world. I don't want a husband, I don't want children of my own. I want to wear a veil and essentially my wedding gown every day. I want to lose it all for Him. I want to do at the most 2 years of graduate school, but the only way for me to get an MA in my field is to apply to the PhD programs becuase these degrees are consolatory for those who don't cut it. I do enjoy school, but some parts of the PhD process are over my head, like the mathematical analyses that I would have to make. I truly don't understand that at all. So I want a Masters, but I also want to enter a convent.

For me entering a convent has been in interesting thought and desire to process. I cannot walk down a hall on campus without a single man looking at me; I know I'm pretty. It took me awhile to understand why God would create and call someone like me who's an academic, is pretty, and has the body configuration that would be best for carrying children (wide hips) for a vocation as a Sister. Then the Spirit showed me that everything fades except the Father's love for us. Half of my physical attributes will not matter in 20 years. My mind will always grow since theology is just as interesting to me as my two majors. I can lose my family, because I gain a much larger, like-minded one. That is not to say that losing anything isn't without its struggle, but I willingly want it.

Why do I wait for graduate school other than education? My parents. I currently live at home. In order for me to just be my own person. I need to burn my own food, wash my clothes in the washer, and burn a hole in my blouse while ironing. I need to attend Mass on my own schedule. I need to get out so I can more freely and happily explore different orders. I need to get out of the house during grad school in order to easily enter the order of my choice without aggression and verbally abuse outlashes.