September 23, 2006
Quarter-Life Crisis
Before you say anything accusing me of plagiarism, let me willingly and gladly admit that I stole the phrase from John Mayer. I heard it in the song “Why Georgia” the other day and realized that it pretty well describes me at this point in my life.
So, I’m barely 23. Still in school. Still at home. Still single. No career yet. Looking back, my status doesn’t seem to have changed much from 5 years ago. Sure, I’ve made some advancements in life. I’m a semester and a half away from graduation. I’ve got a few extremely awesome potential jobs on the horizon. I’ve learned a lot, and I’d like to think that I’m a much different person than I was right out of High School. But, ignoring those things, and really just looking at my “status” here, not considering any emotional, spiritual, or intellectual growth that I’ve gone through, just generally looking at where I am on the journey of life, I’m not much further along than I was right out of High School. Except, of course, for my newfound ability to make insanely long run-on sentences.
But, that kind of frustrates me. And it kind of scares me. And it kind of makes me feel like life is slipping through my fingers.
So, yes, I realize that this doesn’t really make any sense. If life-expectancy is to be believed, I’ve still got a good sixty years left in me. But, unfortunately, emotions rarely listen to the voice of reason, so even though I know that it’s ridiculous, it’s still how I feel. It seems like my life has, for so long, been more an anticipation of great things to come than anything else. While my life has, in reality, been perfectly fine, I’ve been so focused on the possibilities in the future, that I kind of miss out on the “here and now.” Now that I realize that I tend to miss out on things, because I’m so busy thinking about and hoping for the future, I am put in an unusual place. I am still looking forward to the future, and there is a lot that is likely going to happen in the next five years of my life that I’m super-excited about. But, at the same time, I don’t want to miss out on the life that I have right now. I want to take advantage of what I have now and where I am now, but at the same time, I want to be more “grounded” in life with a little more stability.
For example, some people want to wait until their older to get married and settle down. Youth is a time of freedom and self-discovery. You spend the prime years of your life meandering around, having as much fun as you can, experiencing as much as you can, and then after you’ve had your fill, then you get married and settle down. Life as you know it is over, as you start your “new” life with your spouse.
I don’t see it that way. While I’m not at all for rushing into marriage before you’re ready or anything, at the same time, I am not at all drawn to that idea of trying to enjoy as much of life as you can before you are “tied down” by marriage. Whoever I end up marrying is going to be, in my eyes, the most amazing person that I’ve ever met, or else I wouldn’t marry them. If that’s the case, then why wouldn’t I want to start my life with them as soon as humanly possible? I’m probably over-romanticizing this, but I don’t want to wait until I’m 30 to get married, just because I wanted some “alone” time before I settled down with the ol’ “ball-and-chain,” (I hate that phrase) when I could have had an extra 5 or 10 years with that one person in the world who was created just for me. I don’t want to waste the so-called “best years of my life” on myself.
Now, I’m not just sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting to leap head-long into the first opportunity that shows itself. I’m willing to wait however long it takes. But, I can’t say that I’m not a little anxious for that to at least start to take shape. ‘Cause right now, any form of stability and settling seems as distant and vague as it did right out of High School.
Why, Georgia? Why?