"But cute only lasts for so long"

Cute’s good. But cute only lasts for so long, and then it’s, Who are you as a person? That’s the advice I would give to women: Don’t look at the bankbook or the title. Look at the heart. Look at the soul. Look at how the guy treats his mother and what he says about women. How he acts with children he doesn’t know. And, more important, how does he treat you? When you’re dating a man, you should always feel good. You should never feel less than. You should never doubt yourself. You shouldn’t be in a relationship with somebody who doesn’t make you completely happy and make you feel whole. And if you’re in that relationship and you’re dating, then my advice is, don’t get married.

—
Michelle Obama in Glamour


(thanks Teresa)

Great quote

"Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there." -Will Rogers

The tale of the long, silver strand of hair

I went to the gym last night which resulted in an evening shower and sleeping on wet hair. What came of this? A messy head of hair. But of course, I came to work without brushing or fixing the mess. And so began the tale of the long, silver strand of hair.

It was a few hours into the work day and I finally got up from my desk to use the ladies room. As I diligently scrubbed my hands with the new anti-bacterial soap that was stocked to ward off flu-season germs, I glanced in the mirror.

Out of the corner of my eye, just as I was about to turn off the water and exit the ladies room, I saw IT. Glistening in the disgusting, yellow, fluorescent light. Rumpled amongst the other black-ish hairs that existed in complete disarray from the "sleeping on wet hair" debacle. There IT was: long, silver and in existence.

Had a coworker pull it out (don't believe in the, pull one and two grow back business) and waved it around as proof. I'm old, and I have a long, silver strand of hair to prove it.


Le weep.

WANTED:

Seeking texture and richness in life.

Love,

Me

amazing article on burning man

The Truth About Burning Man

"Really?" the guy at the Alamo Rental Car place said, when I'd told him about Burning Man. "I heard it was just a lot of naked people running around on drugs."

Coated in gypsum dust, and still high not on drugs but on the altered consciousness of radical creativity and community, I had just tried to describe what Burning Man is, somehow. I think I'd said something like, "It's a temporary city of 50,000 people, devoted to radical self-expression. So you'll find anything you'd find in a regular city -- art museums, dance clubs, yoga studios -- only in the middle of the desert, with no money, and with more creativity than you've ever seen."

Of the two descriptions, surely Rental Car Guy's is the more familiar. When Adam Lambert revealed that he'd gotten the idea to go on American Idol while on mushrooms at Burning Man, America groaned. The image, I assume, was of a drugged-out weirdo coming up with a loopy idea in the middle of wild, crazy party.

The truth, though, is that Burning Man is an ideal place for self-reflection and self-transformation, whether substance-aided or not, and as someone who's just gotten back from his 8th Burn, Lambert's revelation didn't surprise me a bit. Friends of mine have changed their names, their professions, and their entire lives at Burning Man. And not because they were stoned or tripping, but because Black Rock City -- the temporary city (built and erased within a month) where the event goes on every year, the week before Labor Day -- has a tendency to expand horizons, reveal possibilities, and question the assumptions most of us make about how we're supposed to live our lives.

Burning Man does this, I think, because of a combination of factors. One of them is the sheer size and scope of the thing. 50,000 people. Hundreds of cars and trucks modified to look like dragons, whales, radios, and steamboats; many breathing fire; most with dozens of revelers dancing on them. It's like "Mad Max" meets "Blade Runner" meets "The Ten Commandments," and it's real, it's actually happening.

And it's happening without capitalism. There's no vending at Burning Man -- it's a gift economy. Entire "theme camps" exist just to give away spaghetti, to serve people free margaritas, to make pancakes. Yes, it does cost a lot to get in (between $150-350), but that mostly pays for the rental of the land from the government, the porta-potties and other infrastructure, and grants made to large-scale art projects. No one -- not the celebrity DJs who were there this year, like Armin van Buuren and Carl Cox, and not the people who build the solar electrical grid -- gets paid. No one is making a buck.

This is incredibly liberating. It's not sustainable, but it is a temporary autonomous zone of bullshit-free living. And just being there, just participating in the creation of an entire city devoted to what we want to do, rather than what we have to do to make money, has the tendency to invite self-reflection like Lampert's. Who am I? What do I really want to be doing? If people can create a twelve-ton sculpture of a bird's nest made entirely out of plumbing pipe, what are the limits on my own creativity? "Once you are free," said Baudrillard, "you are forced to ask who you are."

The freedom is more than just freedom from conventional economic life, though. Yes, there are some naked people running around on drugs, because the culture of Black Rock City is a very, very liberal one. (It's not free of law enforcement -- this year in particular, I heard many stories of people being busted for drugs, and for giving alcohol to minor-aged-looking undercover cops.) Of course, how people choose to exercise that freedom is up to them. For every NPRAOD, I'd guess there are two people wishing they had the courage to do so, one person playing the violin on a sofabed in the middle of a desert, two people cooking pumpkin ravioli, and another person writing the name of her beloved on the wooden walls of the Temple -- this year a three-story, Lotus-shaped construction just north of the center of the city, that was burned last Sunday night.

Of course, we don't hear about these other people, which, to me, says more about the puerility of the default world than the sexuality of Black Rock City. It's as if radical self expression is boring, but if it means naked people on drugs, then it's titillating, easy to condemn -- and also comprehensible. Oh, I get it.

You don't get it. You don't get what it's like to have 50,000 people circle around a wooden effigy, with 1000 people spinning fire and 500 more playing drums, all encircled by 200 art cars -- and then all roaring in unison as the effigy is set afire. You might think you get it, and it may scare or tempt or delight you, but I assure you, you don't get it. None of us do, because it's not about any one thing in particular; "it" can be an orgiastic celebration, or the sad mourning of a lost loved one. Or a warm, hippie-like community. Or a mean, Mad-Max-like apocalypse. "It" is chiefly a space in which all these things are possible.

The temporary erasure of societal, social, and personal boundaries is, for most of us, terrifying. Such boundaries help build the structures of society and self; they give form to human life, which is often chaotic and unpredictable. Thus they have been the bedrock of religious and civil life for millennia, even before the Furies were imprisoned under Athens, and Moses descended from Sinai.

But if religion creates boundaries, mysticism and spirituality efface them. In the transcendence of ordinary distinctions, peak experiences such as those encouraged at Burning Man give a glimpse of the ultimate, the infinite. It may seem absurd to suggest that Burning Man is a mystical event. But then, if it's just a big party, why is there a temple in the middle of it?

My back hurts. I'm old. I'm serious.

I started going to the gym again. It's been a few weeks and my body feels like it's never felt before. I'm sore in places I've only heard my Mom complain about (lower back, mainly) and I wake up feeling like I've been run over by 2 very long, very heavy trains, carrying very heavy cargo. I remember working out (hey, it was only an ever-so-brief 9 months away from the gym, lol) and feeling sore the next day or two. But I've never experienced the body melt down I'm feeling now.

Is this what they mean? Your body starts to age with you and things stop working the way they used to. All those times my Mom complained about her back...I should have been more sympathetic. Full blown karma!

Now my friends are like "why are you walking like that" and I have to admit..."it's my lower back, it's killing me!"

Oh man, what next? Arthritis? Bad knees...or even...bad hip????

some days are so hard

im not even certain im going to make it to 26. less than 30 days and im really. not. sure.

'ello? anyone out there?

if my whole life feels like a crisis, does that mean i'm having a LIFE CRISIS or am i just exaggerating and being dramatic. perhaps it's just my no-big-deal midlife crisis.

hello? anyone out there?

yes, another dooce quote (what. i love her. don't hate!)

reading heather's last post: the labor story, part three. came across this sentence that i just had to share, "I spent a lot of time alone, just me and the baby in my womb, thinking and feeling and getting ready to welcome her to the world."

i'm sorry, but i think my biological clock just burst. how sweet is that?! (and just for those who don't know me. my biological clock has been ticking since i was, oh...about 4)

Does being a loner make me old and mature?

This past weekend I attended the #BlogHer09 Conference. Oh shoot, I'm not on Twitter and the hash tag doesn't mean anything. Anyhow, went on behalf of my client but since they were mostly involved on an online component, I got to fully enjoy the conference. I particularly enjoyed the keynotes which were entertaining, captivating, RAW and well, plain inspiring. There were some amazing and talented women at the conference!

I've been "blogging" for over 7 years (well, first recorded blog post I can find via good 'ol XANGA (lol) was June 2002) but this was an entirely on a different wavelength than what I'm used to. I've been working with bloggers for years but this was the first time I got to really join in the conversation with a large group of people who have such a passion for what they do. It was really interesting - and while I'll never blog the way I did in college (basically, about every aspect of my life, every feeling, every up....and down....), or the way these women (mostly women) do, I think I'll always use my blog(s) as a platform to share. I would say, as a platform to engage conversations but I'm pretty sure Mel (co-blog owner here) is the only one who comments. lol.

Anyhow, I'm rambling. On to the reason for the post! So during BlogHer, I knew a few souls at the conference/in Chicago but ended up grabbing dinner alone on Friday night. Which was totally fine, until I actually got to the restaurant (recommended by concierge, across the street from the hotel) and realized, oh wait, eating alone means sitting alone....in a crowded restaurant...on a Friday night! MAN, WHAT A LOSER!

But I decided to embrace this, like I always do when I start feeling "lonely" (I use quotes because I'm not really LONELY but when I remember, I'm alone...I'm like, shoot...I'm alone. Um, does that make sense? Perhaps leave me a comment and I'll explain more. Just kidding. :) ) Anyhow, I thought, why not eat alone at a restaurant, it's so....business-woman'y. We all know my job as a "PRrofessional" does not usually fall under "business woman" but I had to embrace the moment! So I chose to sit at the bar, ordered a glass of wine and ignored the pity-stares. It felt empowering. Like I was reaching another rung on the ladder towards becoming a grown up. Eat alone, at crowded restaurant, while away for work - check!

What's next? Buy a stuffed animal for my kid when I'm away on business? (Uhm, if and when this happens, please 1) let there be a ring on my finger 2) can it be a really cute and well behaved kid that I'm bringing a stuffed animal home for? please?)

To wrap things up, I'm growing up (or at least pretending to) and it feels so good. (Yes, I'm still the only person on the planet who can't wait to GET OLDER. THAT'S RIGHT, late 20s, I'm coming for YOU. EAT YOUR HEART OUT.)

post from dooce, on love

Call me a sap, but someday, I hope to have a love like this.

Excerpt from one of my favorite blogs: Dooce.com.

Enjoy!

For those who live with those like me

Yesterday Jon posted what I think is one of the best things he's ever written on his website about what it's like this second time around. A snippet:

My therapist told me a couple of years ago that she thought I suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) around pregnancy because of what we went through as a couple in 2004. I tend to believe her...

In 2007 we tried and were successful in getting Heather pregnant. She miscarried at 10 weeks and suffered some postpartum depression, which was totally understandable, but made me question if I had the reserves to handle severe postpartum depression again. I wanted to gear up for when we tried again. Once Heather’s system regulated and we decided we wanted a summer baby we went for it again and now we have our beautiful, sweet Marlo. Who deserves all the love and generosity we’ve shared with Leta.

If you haven't read the piece he wrote a couple of months after that miscarriage about what it's like to live with someone who suffers from chronic depression, you should definitely give it a look:

As a heterosexual man attracted to a woman, I have a range of emotions and ways of dealing with whatever life throws my way. One of those things is to look at a problem and want to fix it. Men like to be fixers, for the most part, and this is great for things like a clogged drain or dead car battery. Also great if the satellite dish isn’t picking up the latest “Nature is Sad” show on the educational channel because it’s buried in snow. It is not so great if your partner needs for you to help her by listening...

I’ve really had to stop myself and let it go. I have to tell myself that I need to LISTEN and to tell myself to SHUT UP. It’s doubly important when somebody is anxious or depressed and needs to get it out. I have only met a few men who are great listeners, and those were professionals I was paying to listen.

So. Listen.

I was interviewed a couple of days ago for a small piece about the Forbes thing for a local news station, and during the interview one of the questions triggered a response I haven't been able to articulate yet, that this pregnancy and delivery and now living with two kids... there are days when my love for Jon is almost unbearable, and I am so lucky and thankful to have him in my life. And I have glimpses and memories of those heady, crazy times when we first got together in the sweltering Los Angeles summer of 2001 when we were having sex all day every day YES I JUST WENT THERE and sometimes I look at my two little girls and I can't believe that here I am eight years later and I'm sitting next to Jon Armstrong.

Jon, I love you so much.

it's not really an "ah-ha" moment, more of a HOLY SHIT moment

racing down the path towards the LATE 20s and apparently there is no ctrl-alt-delete button to stop/slow down the process.

and hello, how many times do you catch yourself thinking "holy crap, it's almost august" or "holy crap "it's 2009" or "how am i XX age ALREADY?" (no, but really, HOLY CRAP IT'S BASICALLY AUGUST ALREADY!!!!)

life is speeding by. i just hope everyone in their 20s (and really, just everyone in general) realizes that THIS MOMENT, RIGHT NOW will never come again. the freedom you may or may not think you have is limited. THINGS WILL CHANGE whether you're ready or not. hold on tight, folks.

(oh and, can i just say how surreal it is that i'll be attending my first friend-my-age wedding in a few weeks. reuniting with dozens of folks i haven't seen in almost a decade. it's going to be such an overwhelming but eventful weekend. we always knew she would be first....)

...because SATC is the bane of our existence

(thx Rebecca/Style with Benefits for unknowingly letting me borrow stuff from your page, again. i love you!)

BOY DETOX: JOIN THE REVOLUTION

Please need not apply if:
-you are in a loving relationship (ugh, YOU people)
-you love him/her, s/he loves you
-you are generally a grumpy person
-you don't like pho

Please inquire within if:
-you find yourself wasting away time with boys you don't care about
-you are more infatuated with the attention, than the boy
-you are too dependent on meaningless relationships
-you're ready to spend this precious in-my-20s-and-loving-it time focusing on YOU and how to be a better YOU

Details:
Find yourself wasting minutes, hours, days over someone you really don't even like? Having to endure the horrifying emotions that come with a "relationship" (i.e. worrying, frustration, anger, hurt) over someone you don't even see making the "list" of who made an inkling of an impression in your 20s? Ever catch yourself thinking, why do I even answer your calls? Why do I even respond to your texts...sober?


.....


Weeks ago, I set off in a new direction...a boy-less direction. I deemed it the Boy Detox. I just realized that I was hanging out with people I didn't even care about and why? Because I wanted attention? Companionship? Validation? I've fallen into this pattern so many times before and I decided it was time to make a change. Because really, life is so short and NOW only lasts for so long and who knows when the RIGHT person is going to come along. There are so many things to do, people to see, lessons to learn...I don't need to be wasting ANY of my time over someone who doesn't mean a thing to me.

This decision was made prior to a very...well, life changing conversation I had with a friend last week. But the conversation validated the B.D. and has left me feeling better than ever.

In life, there are so many variables and so little constants but through it all, the one person you can count on, your biggest critic, is yourself. Things around you are always changing and you really have no control over anything but you. Situations, friendships, relationships, jobs, etc. will always shift, change, evaporate, etc. but in the end, what's most important is you're happy with who you are and the decisions you've made.

That very idea has been a life vest and I couldn't agree more.

Bottom line: I want to spend RIGHT NOW working on me. Not working on a "relationship" that means nothing. I want to spend RIGHT NOW making sure I do anything/everything I want to do, learn anything/everything I want to learn, experience ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. Sooner than later (hopefully?) I'll be living in a full time partnership. And I'll have to consider him, his feelings, his schedule, his likes/dislikes and what better time to be selfish than now.

quote to remember

"excuses are the tools of the incompetent" 

(will you judge me if i tell you i heard it on "so you think you can dance")

we're slaves to our ambition

Recently, I was asked to do publicity for another band. The conversation took place during one of my busiest weeks. I had been pulled in so many different directions (work, extra curricular, networking, music PR stuff, etc.) and my initial thoughts were no way...sorry, but there is simply no way i can fit any more stuff into my schedule. But almost immediately I said, "Actually, sure." I didn't necessarily "change my mind" but more, I surrendered and became a slave to my ambition. Who am I to turn down experience in an industry I'm so desperately trying to break into.

I don't think I'm alone in this. I know a lot of people who are taking on "work" beyond their day jobs. Whether it's starting your own wedding/day-of coordination company, studying hard for the GMAT/GREs, working for an old boss to make some extra cash...I feel like a lot of people our age (hello, twentysomethings) are working hard 9-5 and them some to not only make ends meet but make sure we get to where we want to be, and sooner than later if possible. We're sacrificing free time (and sanity) and letting ambition, goals, and dreams take the driver seat.

I guess when it comes down to it, it's in our own hands where we end up. No excuses. No one telling you what to do and when...a little something called "responsibility" -- cheers to whatever that means. ;)

it is what it is...and its various variations

anyone who knows me, knows that my life motto is "it is what it is" aka "and so it is" aka (see left). i mean, i have "and so it is" tatt'd on my side to remind me to "let things be" aka "what will happen, will happen" --- anyways, you get my point. :)

(thx rebecca for sharing the photo)

heartburn is for my...grandma!?!

Heartburn is something I've heard other people complain about, and maybe even a word/condition I've thrown around - but it's nothing I've ever experienced...until tonight. I wish I could blame it on the greasy bar food, or the extraordinarily tangy jalapenos in our nachos. But to be honest, I think it was just a new development of "getting old(er)" that had blossomed unexpectedly. Sneaky little bastard. 

One day I'm heartburn free, young and vibrant. The next day? I eat a few once-harmless-jalapenos, and suddenly I'm launched into my mid-to-late 60s. I'm sure I'll be posting about my sore hip, failing eye sight and arthritis soon enough!

To recap, I had heartburn tonight, and excuse me momentarily while I pray that I wake up tomorrow morning still 25. Not 25 going on 60, as the heartburn suggests.

Cheers to another "oh shit, my body is changing and there isn't a damn thing I can do about it."

hey, hang in there

for all the twentysomethings...

[mel] Initially there was such an intense feeling of despair as I read through this, that constant burning question of “what do I do?” translated from my life by someone I don’t even know onto a random web post about the infamous Quarter Life Crisis. Just one of many articles, I’m sure, but I have never read something quite so profound. To me personally, anyways. It was a little frightening to know that other twentysomethings were just as unsure, but mostly it was a relief to know that I wasn’t alone. We are not alone.

[from eyeweekly.com]

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis

BY Kate Carraway April 01, 2009 21:04

Submit your Quarterlife Crisis Today!

Imagine a day in the life of a couple you probably know. He’s 27 years old, and she’s 26. They wake up beside each other in his downtown bachelor apartment and have sex that neither of them particularly enjoys. They’ve been sort-of dating for a while now, but they’re not willing to commit to each other: he likes her, but doesn’t know if he always will. She can’t decide if she likes him more or less than the other two guys she’s sleeping with.

He bikes to work at an advertising agency, where he uses his master’s in English to proofread ad copy, and spends several hours reading music blogs and watching movie trailers, periodically Twittering updates about his workday to his 74 followers. He doesn’t really hate his job, but feels as if his skin is crawling with vermin most of the time that he’s there, so he has a plan to move to Thailand, or to maybe write a book. Or go to law school.

At her government job, she instant messages her friends and mostly ignores the report she’s drafting because she’s planning on quitting anyway — and has been planning to quit for about a year now. She spends her lunch hour buying boots that cost slightly more than her rent, then immediately regrets it.

He listlessly works through lunch, then goes to the bar after work to meet up with some university friends, where they talk about their jobs and make ironic jokes about other people. Back at home, he wonders why he feels so gross and empty after spending time with them, but it’s mostly better than being alone.

She walks to the house that she shares with three friends and spends a few more hours on celebrity gossip websites, then clicking through the Facebook photos of girls she knew in high school posing with their husbands and babies, simultaneously judging them and feeling a deep pit of jealousy, and a strange kind of loss. “When did this happen for them?” she wonders.

They both eventually fall asleep, late and alone, each of them wondering what it is that’s wrong with them that they can’t quite seem to understand.

This phenomenon, known as the “Quarterlife Crisis,” is as ubiquitous as it is intangible. Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middle class and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation. They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are, and they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want.

When a contemporary 25-year-old’s parents were 25, they weren’t concerned with keeping their options open: they were purposefully buying houses, making babies and making partner. Now, who we are and what we do is up to us, unbound to existing communities, families and class structures that offer leisure and self-determination to just a few. Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities.

IDENTIFIED FOR THE first time in 2001, the Quarterlife Crisis has been written about most notably by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner in the New York Times best seller Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. The themes of twentysomething ennui are everywhere in pop culture (Garden State; Lost in Translation) but it’s also been explicitly addressed: on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf explains some bad behaviour with “I was such an overachiever, I was headed for a Quarterlife Crisis at 18”; in the John Mayer song “Why Georgia” (“I rent a room and I fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home but all I feel’s alone / It might be a Quarterlife Crisis or just the stirring in my soul”); Quarterlife was a successful web series about seven twentysomethings with creative tendencies. There’s also a terrible metal band from Long Island called Quarterlife Crisis who look like an apathetic version of Insane Clown Posse.

Says Michael Kimmel, a sociologist and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, “The Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of anticipatory crisis: ‘How is my life going to turn out? I don’t have a clue; I don’t have a map; I don’t have a vision for it.’ The mid-life crisis is a kind of ‘Is this it? I had a big plan, I had big ideas. Now I’m 48 and I guess I won’t get to do those things.’ The mid-life crisis is understood as one of resignation. A Quarterlife Crisis will resolve itself by hooking itself into a plan.” What that plan could be, though, might be vague, or feel altogether impossible to create.

Attempts to manage the Quarterlife Crisis might be as banal as drinking a lot, doing a bunch of drugs, sleeping with idiots and myriad other kinds of self-flagellation, but broader attempts are made to find some sense of purpose. An obvious choice for panicking twentysomethings with a post-undergraduate sense of displacement and for the ones that aren’t fulfilled by their jobs is grad school. James, a 28-year-old student, says “Quarterlife crises are the reason that so many universities have turned lower-level graduate programs into a cash cow.” Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education. (He also has a Ph.D.) Scheer emphasizes making an informed choice. “Whether graduate school is a wise move depends on each individual student and what they want to study. Law school can be helpful, but mostly if a student can gain acceptance to a top-tier school. Getting a Ph.D. could be dangerous for some students, especially since Ph.D. graduation rates are obscenely low these days, and few tenure-track jobs are available. So it really depends.”

Among the implicit promises made to this generation of twentysomethings was that they would have work that was engaging and creatively fulfilling. A 27-year-old freelance graphic designer with a graduate degree who is struggling to find work, Prescott says “You could always say the whole premise of education is that if you study, get good grades, acquire skills, you will have more options in a ‘career and life’ point of view. If you get a degree, you don’t have to work in a factory or have to work in a farm. That’s proving to be a huge lie, because you have people coming out of school and there are just no jobs, especially in ‘middle-class’ fields.” The dissonance between a twentysomething’s pre-career expectations and the dissatisfaction they feel as part of the working world can be hugely defeating. As Kimmel says, “They don’t have much of a life plan about how to move from Point A to Point B. What happens very often is they have very big ambitions, [but] there is a mismatch between their planning for their lives and their ambitions.” He also says that the conflict is made more difficult because 25-year-olds are living “in an economic environment which is the most inhospitable in our history.” David J. Rosen, the author of What’s that Job and How the Hell Do I Get It, a career guide based on interviews with young professionals with “cool” jobs across a variety of professions, says “Generally, being happy at work is huge part of having a happy life, and a cool and interesting job is one that leaves you fulfilled, not bitter, or not with that existential career angst that you were meant for ‘more than this.’”

SPENDING MONEY IS as fraught as making it. Multiple degrees, trips to Peru, and keeping up appearances on Saturday night all communicate values and desires, and having no consistent sense of “want” can reinforce the problem, often with trail of debt. Anya Kamenetz, who is a 29-year-old staff writer at Fast Company magazine and the author of the book Generation Debt: Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young, says “As recently as the early 1990s, Americans had less than $10,000 of student loans on average. Now the average is over $20,000. As of about 2006, young people had $4,000 of credit-card debt on average, and those with debt were spending a quarter of their income on debt payments.” Kamenetz says “Debt and lower income can affect your choice of jobs. It can take longer to move out of your parents’ house or stop accepting those cheques and become fully independent. And many young people find themselves asking the question: ‘Why haven’t I made more progress?’ It makes people feel like failures when really there are larger trends at work.” This is also, in part, what has led to the “Boomerang” trend, where adult children move back in with their parents after leaving for school or work.

Scheer identifies another, more insidious problem with grad school, and with delaying career choices generally: “Graduate school presents some ‘opportunity costs’ in that students can’t work while they go to school. So, for example, someone who goes to medical school and doesn’t finish residency until their late 20s or early 30s won’t financially catch up to their friends until they are in their late 30s or early 40s or later. These are all important factors to consider and not be unrealistically optimistic about.”

The Quarterlife Crisis remains largely a middle-class, Stuff White People Like kind of problem, and usually manifests itself where certain problematic social norms used to exist, like who had access to education and interesting work, and who was allowed adventure and self-determination. The twentysomething void is, in large part, due to the important evolution of sexual equality, and when sex, relationships, and family-building changes, everything does.

Kimmel says, of men in particular, “Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work. You’re never going to have sex again because you’re going to get married. Your life is over.” So why bother? Literal and figurative fucking around is infinitely more appealing to men who are still sorting out what they want their lives to look like.

“Grown-ups understand that the choices we make also involve choices we don’t make,” Kimmel says. “We have some regrets and we carry [those] with us. Guys don’t get a lot of help in this from each other or from our culture. Culturally we have got to show guys that the other side of this is actually terrific.” He points out that, statistically, married men are happier and have more sex, and that fathers experience lower levels of depression. Still, Kimmel points out that very young marriage has the highest rate of divorce, and that men would do well to spend their unmarried years focused on their own growth, rather than Halo 3.

WOMEN ALSO FIND themselves conflicted, usually more than men, about the trajectory of their twenties as they relate to relationships. Sarah, who is 27 and works at a non-profit, wants to travel and get a master’s degree, but feels conflicted about doing either. “I want to have kids, and every day that goes by, I have this number in my head. It’s 32. It used to be 30. That’s only a few years from now. I’m thinking, if I don’t do some of this stuff now, before I have kids, am I going to be able to do it?” Women are roundly considered to be in biologically ideal form for baby-making in their twenties and early thirties, which are also prime fun-having and career-building years. For women who want all of the things promised by (theoretically) equal education, work and sex lives, the conflict of desires can be catastrophic. Leah, who is a 26-year-old with a demanding corporate job, says “I feel tied down because of my job, but at the same time feel that while I am single and young I should travel because I don’t have any obligations to other people, and it’s only going to get harder as I get older.” Sarah says, “Am I going to have regrets? Once you have kids, your opportunities are over. That’s probably not true. But everyone seems to change. All of the women who I work with who have kids, they change. Their priorities shift.” Sarah’s boyfriend doesn’t feel the same pressure. “He doesn’t have that kind of timeframe. He says ‘I don’t even think about that.’ Of course you don’t think about it.... [Men] really don’t think about it.”

In 1973, the average age for women to get married was 23, and for men, 25. By 2003, the average age for both rose about five years, a significant change that reflects both marriage-free cohabitation and purposefully delaying serious commitment. It also means that twentysomethings are increasingly going it alone in their financial lives, where they would historically be building assets and houses and portfolios alongside their partner. Women, especially, are buying homes on their own. It also means that loneliness and isolation are far more likely, particularly when being separated from the close friendships that make up university life happens without a family or back-up community in place.

THE EMOTIONAL TUMULT reported during, or remembered after, a Quarterlife Crisis has a scarily ineffable quality. This isolation and its private anxiety are pervasive, as is a longing for the way things were in the predictably structured eras of high school and college or university. The directionlessness and resulting immobility is made worse when twentysomethings going through the Crisis compare themselves to their peers, past and present, further convincing someone in the throes of it that they’re not only alone, but the worst kind of failure. Says Leah, “A lot of [my friends] are settling down and getting ready to take the next steps towards marriage and families and it makes me question why I am not doing the same, and I realize that the amount of effort they put into finding a partner and getting married I put into my career. So how could I possibly have time for both?”

Twentysomethings are also inundated with constant but mostly empty communication, as the increasingly primary social sphere exists online instead of real life. Nothing could be more alienating to someone in the midst of a crisis than a tool like Facebook. Says James, “All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.”

Adair, who is 30, found herself mired in a Quarterlife Crisis and sought professional help. She says, “I worked with a life coach, and he helped me a lot to realize that I was creating a vicious cycle in my life.... It was a cycle with four different phases, and I’ve followed it basically throughout my life. The steps were: I would get really excited about something, something new something different, something stellar, big. I went off to school totally excited and ready for an awesome experience. Stage two would be like ‘Oh, this is it? This is kind of boring now.’ After one-and-a-half exciting and non-stop years, I realized that I wasn’t excited about being there anymore. Stage three would be ‘What am I doing, why am I choosing to do this?’ In that third stage I would inevitably have some type of breakdown, [which] usually consisted of crying and talking through the feelings of emptiness and boredom with a friend or family member. Then I would have kind of breakthrough in that experience and get myself back up. At that point, I went abroad to Seville, Spain.... Now every time I’m faced with a change or new situation or find myself bored, I ask myself if this is a part of the cycle, or is this genuinely how I’m feeling.”

Having so much — youth, ability, independence — can feel like the worst possible scenario. What remains, though, is the potential for the years with anxiety and without direction to be reclaimed. Scheer sees real opportunity here. “If you feel you’re in crisis, this is a great opportunity to draft a five-year plan with steady concrete goals to help you get to where you want to be. Anyone can transform their life in just a few years.” Michael Kimmel says “There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the fuck up.



[jnet's response: every sentence i read i fall deeper into "WHO WROTE THIS AND HOW DO THEY KNOW ME, US"]

[mel]

no set up needed

from Yimmys Yayo

the inevitable

it's a really sensitive subject. not just for me, im sure for everyone. but the past few years it has become more of a consistent thought and last night it crept into my dreams. it's inevitable that as we get older, our parents are aging too. it's not something we want to think about but someday, they're going to pass away and life will, for the first time, be so very different. it's just the way of life. people go through it every day. (unless of course, the unthinkable, when parents lose their children before their children can lose them. even. more. horrible.)

so ever since college, i've thought about this. thought about how someday, i'm going to lose my parents. and i know, it's a horrible thing to think about but i get worried, scared and sometimes make myself sick to my stomach thinking and imagining how horrified i am going to be when that day comes. how empty, alone, and heartbroken i'll be.

last night, in my dream - i lost my mom. the dream started out with her taking glamour shots. (which is strange in itself!) and i eventually went to join her. later on we were reviewing our photos and she started to point out the photos w/her wearing a wig and noted they were her best. eventually the conversation in the dream shifted to her alluding to why she was taking the photos. and in the dream, all of a sudden, it clicked. she was saying that she wasn't going to be around much longer. and i remember in the dream, i snapped. in one second my world crumbled and i was uncontrollably sobbing. even though it was a dream, i remember feeling pain. the kind of pain i often catch myself daymaring (daydream+nighmare) about. how i'll feel a part of me gone, torn away violently.

through the rest of the dream, i endured the next few days with friends. tried to get my mind off things. finding myself OK one moment and the next my eyes filled with tears and my heart hurting. other moments i'm with family, trying to get through the time together. and in the dream, i felt so alone. so lost. and just as i'd thought in my daymares, i thought... THIS IS SO UNFAIR. my mom is supposed to see me get married. she's supposed to be with me when im pregnant, when i give birth, and meet/love my grandchildren. (i think about this all the time. that i would be SO CRUSHED if either of my parents missed these events)

how distraught i was. in the dream. is resonating. and it makes my heart race.

i woke up around 5am. relieved as ever. and wanted to call my mom. but i know, she has trouble sleeping so i didn't want to rob her of a few more hours.

i woke up again around 730 and called her straight away. she answered, and said hi really quickly and told me she was on a long distance phone call. i just asked, "mom. are you ok? are you healthy?" and she said yes and that she had to go. (wasn't the response i was hoping for but hey, she responded! was good enough for me)

about 15 minutes later she called back and asked if i was ok. i told her i had a bad nightmare and she said that's what she figured. she asked if i wanted to talk about it...how do i tell her that i had a nightmare that i lost her. (implied but never said in the dream, to cancer - which she had/got rid of a few years back) i told her i didn't want to talk about it. she reassured me she was fine. and that was that.

i know. it's inevitable. it'll happen someday i just hope that in the next few decades i remember to tell my parents how much i love and appreciate them. and even though i live a few hundred miles away, make it a point to include them in my life. it's not something i want to look back on and regret. life is full of the unexpected and i want to make sure that i never neglect to show my love and appreciation. life is just too fragile.

-jnet

i'm bored with life.

how can that be? i've been going out every weekend, concerts, music festival, dinners, comedy shows, etc....HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE BORED? well, i'll tell you how. i'm getting older and people around me are experiencing so much on their own (check) AND with their significant others. is it time? am i ready? is "he" (big question mark) ready? (if you could please define/locate "he" it would be greatly appreciated)

i've been out of a relationship for 15 months, give or take. just around how long i was single after my last relationship before the next one started (ish. all very approximate i'm too lazy to count and, well, think) i'm starting to feel like i'm ready to share myself with someone, in the emotional sense. before now, of course, i would sometimes feel lonely but i knew that i wasn't emotionally ready for another invested relationship. sure, i have plenty of well, um, not-really-emotionally relationships. but sitting here and recognizing that i just might be ready to invest myself into something...it's scary. scarily honest.

and i think it comes down to the fact that im lonely. there are so many people around me and this isn't some emo confession. i am happy. i really am. but i just want to share my happiness with someone else. and on the flip side, i want to vibe and feed off of someone else's happiness. man, i remember how good that feels.

anyways. it's only about..hm... 1/3 of the battle for me to "feel" ready. it's really up to God and the universe to decide when that person is going to come into my life. whether or not im going to actually let him in, and whether or not he'll actually be that positive light i'm looking to add to my life. (not make me who i'll be, but add to who i am and who i want to become)

oh. god. i'm getting old and sappy. at least it's not old and saggy... :)

-jnet

quarter life crisis

it's like having a brain fart.

 

but instead of a momentary lapse in memory, it's like i've had a lapse in LIFE. it's so sad i'm not even sure what to do with myself at this point.  the moment has come. i have complete control of the direction i will take next in life. complete control. and i don't want it. i don't know what to do with it. and i know, I KNOW, no one can really help me at this point except myself. perhaps that is the scariest thing of all, that it is all on me.

Quote Love

"There is so much to learn from each other and about each other's culture. Great creativity begins with tolerance."

Yo-Yo Ma

a new quote from an everyday-somebody

just saw this quote from the author of this blog's grandmother:

"You don't have to get over it, you just have to get around it."

loves it.

the pep talk.

a 20something's only chance at survival.

Inauguration Day 2009

"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many... But know this, America: They will be met."

-Our new hope, President Obama

There's a first for everything...

A few months ago, I had a first. For the first time, I was scared of the next age. Twenty-six. Are you kidding me? What the heck! Twenty-five was FINE. Didn't flinch one bit, in fact, I was ecstatic. But for some reason, the thought of twenty-six, being twenty-six, makes me panic. It's close(r) to thirty, it's on the wrong side of twenty-five, it's a multiple of thirteen and that just can't be good...

But in all seriousness, for the first time ever in my life, I'm intimidated by my next birthday. I'm sure it'll be fine, but it was just a weird feeling to feel what so many have felt about the past few birthdays. Holy crap. We're growing up!