Trying to Escape This Quarter Life Crisis
I’m at a weird place. I have plenty of time, but I’m running out of time. I’m doing great, but I’m doing horribly. My wildly, futuristic-ally ambitious, 16-year-old self would be in disbelief of my, quarter-life-crisis-approaching, current 24-year-old self. In my adolescence, I just knew what life would look like in my young adulthood.
My boyfriend of the past year just proposed! We’re going to spend the next year preparing for our soon-to-be life as one. After a year of engagement, we’ll be surrounded with love at our immaculate wedding. We still won’t be in any rush to have kids, until we’ve spent a couple of years enjoying and deepening our relationship as newlyweds, then we’ll go ahead and be fruitful and multiply. We both were climbing the ladder to success when we met and by the time we start a family, we’ll be in really good places in our careers.
Yeah, well, life doesn’t always go as planned, now does it?! Okay, I understand that, but dang! I thought it’d be going a little better than it is now.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m truly grateful for all the blessings God has bestowed upon me. Tears literally (have and) can come rolling down my face while thinking about His grace and mercy on my life.
As grateful as I am, it doesn’t negate my inadequate state of being. Though people seem to think that I “have it all together” and I’m “doing it big,” I don’t and I’m not. In addition to these types of compliments, people have gone as far to ask me for financial assistance. I’m unsure as to where this idea comes from, because I definitely don’t create the facade that I “have it like that.” Shoot, I’ll be the first to turn down an invite and tell you “ouu.. maybe after payday.. and I’ll have see what my check is looking like.” Who knows when I’ll stop living paycheck-to-paycheck?!
And that’s what this blog post is about. “The sense of desolation, isolation, inadequacy, and self-doubt, coupled with a fear of failure” are defining factors of the quarter-life crisis, as researched by a life coach (link paper pdf). I’m not in a good place, and no one else is in this less-than-good place with me. I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, and it’s unclear to me when, or if, I will be. Not being successful is unfathomable.
As I write and reread the previous paragraph to myself… goodness! That’s a dreadful way to feel, but got dog it, I can’t lie to myself, it’s normal to feel that way!
That’s where I am. Even though I’m not ecstatic about it, exactly where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be. My pressure from self and uncertainty may not feel too pleasant at the moment, but I find comfort in knowing it will make for a good feeling later. You know when you’ve been tied up all day without eating, your stomach is touching your back, you finally get some food and you wonder, “dang, either this food is bangin’ or I’m just hungry”? Yeah, my stomach is growling right now, but I’ll be eating soon and it’s going to taste so freaking good. :-)
Those are thoughts scribbled into one of my many cute little notebooks scattered about my living space. Time has passed since I wrote those words, but the feelings haven’t. What’s the time frame for a quarter life crisis? When am I going to be out of this quarter life crisis? Or maybe I should ask, how do you get out of a quarter life crisis?
Birthdays was the worst days, now we ship champagne when we thirstaaaaay
I’m looking forward to those sweet sips of success. But am I ready for them? Am I afraid of them? Maybe we’ll talk about that. Today is only day 1 of 30k in 30 days. I’m sure we’ll talk about plenty. When I decided this would be my countdown, in a way, from November 8th to December 8th, I tweeted it, thinking aloud, as I tend to do. One of the members of my Growe family lineage responded to the tweet asking me to enlighten him. He thought I was referring to making thirty-thousand dollars in thirty days, and oh baby, how I wish that were the case. One day, oh yes, one day, Oh Lord, my words will make me $30,000 in 30 days… but for right now, the words..
Over the next 30 days, I’m setting out to write 30,000 words. Maybe I’ll work my way out of my quarter life crisis, or come to grips with aging while society places so much value in a woman’s youth, or at the very least I’ll prove to myself that consistency is a trait I’m capable of possessing.
It’s now or never, b!+ch! Let’s go.
