This week’s guest post is from Arielle. You can find her over at Good Things Come To Those Who Whine.

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I like to think of myself as still being in that “young and stupid” phase - someone who’s likely to lose a perfectly good Sunday to a perfectly wretched hangover, who blasts Top 40 music and free dances around her room instead of doing homework, and who has nary a care in the world aside from when the next sorority function is. And then I realize - I’m not in college anymore. All of a sudden, I’m looking at myself in that proverbial introspective mirror wondering, “When on earth did I become so…responsible?”

I’m 24 years old. I graduated from a good college, spent 3 years wearing a suit to my corporate job, and just started business school. I have tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt because I’m financially independent, and I worry when I can’t make it to the gym for a few days in a row. I go out on weekends but make sure to leave the bar by 12:30 so that I can catch the subway home. I make regular phone calls to my landlord about exciting things like broken ovens, leaks, and mailbox keys.

Forget responsible. When did I become so BORING? Is this part of getting old?

The other day, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle when a song came on that I hadn’t heard in years. My friends and I used to blast it on repeat during freshman year of college, singing along as we took shots and danced in a circle in preparation for hitting up the hot fraternity party of the night. We would run outside in our revealing party tops, leaving any semblance of a coat behind because they were “too annoying to deal with.” We drank awful punch and even more awful beer, as we giggled and pointed at cute guys across the room. After sleeping until noon, we gathered at the dining hall the next day, last night’s makeup still smeared on our faces, and recounted our individual stories from the previous night.

All of this came back to me with just one song. I immediately texted a few of those girls, and the ensuing conversations were filled with sentiments of “I MISS COLLEGE” or “Do you remember the time when…” And when that was over, I was back to being 24, with a life so perfectly planned there isn’t any room for spontaneity, and my myriad responsibilities waiting for me to come down from my nostalgia.

This time, my more fun half stepped in. “Helloooo, you’re 24, not 84! Did you NOT dress up as a slutty police officer last Halloween, and did you NOT end up with your head in the toilet bowl that night? Did you NOT recently blow off the gym in favor of a pedicure? And don’t think I didn’t see you dancing in your room to the Pussycat Dolls just the other day. My dear, you’re not as old or as boring as you think you are. Now go grab a beer and watch an episode of The Hills - your Statistics homework can wait.”

So just a reminder - if you ever get hit with that notorious quarter-life crisis, just make sure to pay some attention to the devil on your shoulder. =)

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under guest posts, quarter life crisis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.