When I was around 22 or 23 I was convinced I was suffering from (the newly coined) quarter life crisis.
The way I understood it, people suffer from a midlife crisis when they wake up one day and realize that their life is halfway over and they have settled into a routine. They feel life has little excitement left. Well into a career path. Married to spend the rest of their life with one person. Done having kids and now considered more of a parent than a person.
On the opposite spectrum... the quarter life crisis is the burden of too many options. Do I go back to school? Where do I want to live? Where should I work? Should I be single? Should I date this guy or that guy or both? And any of these decisions could change the trajectory of the rest of my life. That’s a lot of responsibility my 22 year old self had to my younger and older self.
But... ever the planner, I took on the challenge. I made a spiderweb diagram (I’m not sure this is an actual thing) that expanded out in all directions like a choose your own adventure to play out each scenario. At 22 I had already learned one of the most valuable lessons of life, that you can prepare for your life but you can’t plan it. And if I had stuck to the life I planned up to that point I already knew it wouldn’t have turned out as well as it did. And so, I worked hard to prepare myself for opportunities and prudent risks that paid off. I was admired for getting so far at such a young age and I had it all figured out. I was on track to be married with kids with a successful career by 35.
As it turns out, my 22 year old self doesn’t need me to come back and give advice. I had it together much more than I do now. Somehow, I’m back in my quarter life crisis. I need my 22 year old self to help me navigate this crisis (again? Or still?). How am I so far from the security and stability of my midlife crisis when chronologically it’s closer than age 22 for me now? At least at 22 a quarter life crisis is “normal”. At my age, it’s a mystery. Is this regression? Why did I think all the pieces would be in place now? Why didn’t anyone tell me it would be a possibility that it might not be? Like when my friends have trouble with their potty training toddler and defensively say, “they will get it eventually. It’s not like they will go to the prom in diapers.” But what if they did? Is that the equivalent of my stunted progress?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve developed and grown over the years. I’ve Learned that some of the many options in those many decisions I thought might be right for me weren’t. And I’ve been exposed to things I would have never even considered options and things I’d never heard of. But, I can’t imagine my 22 year old self’s reaction if I could go back and I basically said, “sorry kid, I have no idea. Actually, maybe you have some advice for me?” My 22 year old self would shake my current self and tell her to stop crying and pull her shit together. But at least then she would have had a warning. She would have had time to prepare for the possibility that there would be over a decade of decisions to be made and even then, life would still be more fluid than any other example of adulthood is ever seen.
At times I feel so far from being an adult. I guess it’s because my version of adulthood is so far from any adult I ever knew growing up. So maybe if I could go back to talk to 22 year old me I’d tell her to open her eyes to see how many ways people adult outside of middle class suburbia and aim for the one that works for me. To forgive myself and not judge myself because my version of adulting won’t look like the adults I knew growing up. Tell her that the goal of surviving a quarter life crisis shouldn’t be to have a midlife crisis. Because what every midlife crisis wants is a quarter life crisis.