Time for the So-Called Quarter Life Crisis
Most people grow more reflective in the beginning of the year. January 1 is the time for resolutions, for looking back and thinking ahead. I seldom make resolutions on New Year’s Eve, but instead reserve most of the deep thoughts and contemplation for January 10, which this year, happens to be my twenty-fifth birthday. Despite that fact that I’ve spent the past week telling my family and friends not to remind me that I’m “old” I realize that I’m not shy putting my age out there on the internet. Clearly, I have a ways to go before I have to start lying about the year I was born and attaching an undeserved “-nine” to the end of my age.
I used to think of a “year” not in terms of the calendar but in terms of school years – September to June, August to May. My perception of this period changed a few years out, when thoughts of school years shifted to calculating fiscal years and summer no longer meant free time off. I still use college as a benchmark – a time that was unlike the rest of my life, where I had as much or as little responsibility as I wanted and a circle of friends around me that, unbeknownst to them, was a buffer zone between me and the rest of the real world.
In my last year of college, the senior class had a unique tradition that we upheld at the end of each month. Regardless of the day of the week or time of year, my senior class used to head to one of the three bars in our tiny college town, around 10 or 11 PM on the thirtieth or thirty-first, regardless of the day of the week, to celebrate the New Month. Unlike the New Year, which happens once every 365 days, New Month gave us a reason to celebrate in the deadest of winter, smack in the middle of finals week, or on a Sunday night at the end of April after the biggest party weekend of the semester.
Having gone to a small, cliquey school, senior year marked the first time in my college life that groups of friends from various social circles, regardless of their Greek status or lack thereof, whether voluntary or involuntary, would celebrate their twenty-one year old status the way no one else in the school could. As you might have guessed, we would congregate at the bar, where the obliging bartender, who knew most of us by name would flip to the TV guide channel that displayed a ticker clock so that those of us who weren’t laughing too hard could count backward from ten before shouting “Happy New Month!” at the stroke of 12.
This type of camaraderie was not familiar to me, having gone to a large, sprawling high school that was anything but tight-knit, followed by an experience in college that, while I wouldn’t change for anything in hindsight, was an environment that didn’t foster challenge me to grow and mature leaving my comfort zone. The next time I would find this camaraderie would be when I started a blog in May 2008 and learned that all over the country, there are people who are just like me.
In the past year, since I turned twenty-four, I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned things that everyone says they know and that we see other people learning on TV and in the movies. I’ve learned that you never know what you’re capable of until you’re challenged. I’ve learned that sometimes the hardest things to say out loud are the right things to say. I’ve learned that there are times when you need to put your own needs before everything else in order to be happy. Alternatively, there are also times when you need to bench all of your worries in order to stay strong for the people you love. Most importantly, I’ve learned that the challenges that I’m facing as I settle into my adult life aren’t unique. There are hundreds of thousands of you out there who have had difficulty adjusting from “college life” to “real life” and there are even more of you out there whose challenges mimic my own.
For me, the biggest challenge is admitting that I am, in fact, facing a challenge. When I have a conflict my instinct is to sometimes ignore it, cross my fingers and hope it goes away. In reality, facing conflict is working from within and with others to reasonably resolve it. In our twenties, I feel like we learn more than we have in the rest of our lives, because we absorb all of our prior knowledge and life begins to cumulate into a chain of events – from the good, to the bad, to the indescribable.
What has been the biggest challenge for you in your twenties? How has “the real world” changed your perception of time?
January 9th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I loved this post! My university art history class had the same tradition of going to the bar on the last day of each month. Well, except it was just me and my friends and ‘the last day of the month’ was more like, any school day.
But still, I know what you are saying.
I think for me.. the biggest challenge has been (and sometimes still is) realizing that it’s okay to not know what I’m doing. I have a lot of friends who are checklist, 5-year plan people… and I’m not. And realizing that not knowing what I want to do isn’t always a bad thing, it’s just different.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Great post!
I think for me it has definitely been friends related – when I moved in with Mister, they all really dropped off the map and I took it really hard. I didn’t realize that for them what I was doing was completely foreign and they didn’t know how to handle it. I wish they had handled it differently, but learning to not stew and just to talk about those things instead has been really helpful.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
well, i’m just about to turn 21 this month, so i barely have any experience in this whole “twenties” business, but i have grown far faster than any of my friends or other people my age so far as maturity and emotional understanding go. i had to deal with (and still am) the death of a sibling back in july of 07. i moved to arizona for school, only to drop out, fell heavily into drugs, and barricaded myself from the world. i found the love of my life on an art website in january of 08, met him in march, and immediately started to get in touch with everything that was going on within me, with his help. since april, i’ve been living with him in new york and i can’t help but feel like i’m 20 going on 27. it’s a little sad for me, and definitely humbling, because i feel like i skipped the whole college thing (at least mentally) even though i’m only going to be 21.
so anyway, i really liked this post, it made me think, and i really appreciate you taking the time to write something so thought-provoking.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Maris….Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great post. I’ve had so many challenges in my twenties, it would be hard to fit them all into this little comment box.
and as far as time is concerned….jesus, does it go by fast these days.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
and Brandy- whats with all the emoticons lately?
it’s so not you.
January 9th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Maris!!!!!!! Have you been writing here the whole time? How did I not know that?? Anyway, I loved this post! I completely relate to everything you said. My biggest challenge the past few years has been becoming comfortable with myself through all the other changes in my life. That’s why I love blogging so much. We get to write about all those mistakes and lessens learned, but we also get support from friends all over the world who are going through the same thing. It’s amazing really.
Happy Birthday!!!!
January 12th, 2009 at 12:52 am
[...] they are in. It is surely also tied to the quarter life crisis (which the sixth paragraph of this blogpost sums it up quite well), actually, it is probably the reason for the quarter life crisis. Once we [...]
January 16th, 2009 at 6:52 am
I think the biggest challenge was realizing that I would not be poor and how to go on from there… College does crazy things. Like it allows me to live like a pauper but earn like a prince and still not really understand the REAL value of money.
Also, I still think in terms of semesters…
February 1st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Not counting the passing of my mom (as that would screw with anyone’s decade)…..I’d say getting over a failed relationship to a girl I thought I was going to marry. It made me face my identity, career, goals in life, etc.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
This is an exceptionally great article!!
July 28th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
well, my clock is ticking cause i’m turning 25 in exactly 3 days (August 1st) so yes, I can very much relate to this post. Thanks for writing it.
I moved out of my comfy zone when I was 19 to go to college (which is about 5000 miles away) and i have learnt that in real life, there are plenty of honest, good hearted people but also mean and cranky (and mostly jealous) ones and you can never please them all so just (try to) ignore them and do your own things. I’ve also learnt to value what I have before it’s too late. I’ve learnt that success tastes the sweetest when you know that you’ve truely earnt it. I’ve learnt that it wouldn’t help to face difficulties with a painfull face, people only pity you and I don’t need that, i try to face it with a smile if I can help it. I’ve learnt that sometimes it hurts me even more knowing I’ve hurt others. Besides, I’ve also learnt that a few wonderful things happen when you least expect it. However, “life is about making the best out of what you are handed”(can’t remember who said that), so most of the time, you CAN make thing happen. I’ve learnt that it’s really okay to not know a lot, curiosity is the key to knowledge. Amazingly, I’ve learnt to love, to be loved, but also to let go and move on. I’ve still learnt the joy of having adventures, experience all and keep the best. And mostly, I’m still learning from my own mistakes.
I guess the quarter-life crisis has just struck me cause I know more about what I don’t want than what I do want.