Quarter-Life Crisis
The further I delve into my twenties, the more frightened I become. Perhaps the scariest moment was the last week of my last year in undergrad. This is when it really hit me that I’m growing up whether I like it or not, and that graduating into full-blown adulthood is not nearly as luxurious or exciting as I thought it would be when I was a kid. As thoughts of grad school and job applications flood my brain, I begin to feel old and I regret never accomplishing many things in my lost youth. I am having a quarter-life crisis, a growing phenomenon in the twenties demographic.
I suppose my quarter-life crisis began before graduation. As the final days of University came near, I started thinking of all the things that I wanted to do before I would never have time for myself again. For one, travel. I have been nowhere outside of North America, I never got around to doing an exchange program in Australia like I planned, and my boyfriend and I have only taken one major vacation together. I realize I can’t go for month-long getaways if I go to Grad school; I certainly won’t be able to once I have a career. I decide to put off grad school applications and search for a job applicable to my career path but that I won’t mind being rid of once vacation time rolls around. This way I can save money, build on my resume, and still be able to tour Europe.
I also realize that I have lived in only two cities my entire life. I decide it’s time for a major change, some new excitement. Within a week of thinking this I tell my best friend I will get a place with her in Toronto – sans job, sans money, sans any knowledge of the city. This was a rather spontaneous/stupid idea, but what did I have to lose? After all, my rent was up by the end of the summer and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
One month in the new city and I still had no job. But I did have a lot of free time and this is when I conjured up more things on my ‘things to do before 25’ list. I started to read more books, I painted my bathroom, I researched places to vacation, I now watch Jeopardy every day, and I began this blog. I found myself going to more museums and art galleries and watching more independent films. I wanted to consume every aspect of life… god knows how long it’ll be until a job consumes every aspect of mine.
You may think that planning to take a year off of my life simply to enjoy it is silly. But this is much more common than you may think. Several of my friends have done the victory lap in University – not to improve their grades, but for the security. They still get their parents benefits, they still get to party with students, and they know they can rely on parents for handouts since they don’t have time for a full-time job. This is a smart move when it comes to avoiding the adult world.
A few friends of mine have avoided this milestone by teaching English overseas. Sure, this seems like a mature career move, but everyone that I know who has done it, has no interest in becoming a teacher. They just want to travel and get paid for it. On a similar note, some friends have decided to fulfill an ambition of working one last ‘fun’ job before advancing into their career path. For example, my friend’s old roommate became a flight attendant and another friend got a job doing retail as a form of escapism from her 9-5 office job. Some friends have taken a year off to travel around Europe and Africa, some moved out west to work on resorts. My best friend recently researched working on a cruise ship for six months. And my other best friend asked me my opinion on what she should learn first- the guitar or a new language. On an extreme note, I recently heard of a friend who is only eating spinach and soy milk, and wants to travel to India to climb a mountain.
I truly don’t feel that this quarter-life crisis is a sign of immaturity. But it is a sign of avoiding the inevitable- a life full of dead lines, projects, and having very little leisure time. I also think it’s very smart to take the time to accomplish these things when you’re in your twenties- because walking the Sahara or dying your hair blue would be a bit more difficult when you’re fifty.
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1 Comment to Quarter-Life Crisis
I love it! So true – I’m currently feeling many of the same things you were at this time last year. It’s a scary thing.
February 4, 2009