Oh, how I *heart* you, Brazen Careerist. I particularly love the daily e-mail I get from you with all of the amazing blog posts you’re featuring that day. I’ll admit, some days I just skim and other days I skip reading some posts entirely (though I will admit I’m fascinated by the amount of HR/Recruiting and Marketing posts you feature, they just don’t apply to me at the moment), but for the most part, reading those daily e-mails is a highlight of my day. Some posts make me laugh, some posts make me cringe, some posts make me angry and some posts make me realize something about myself.
When I come across a blog post that really makes me think, that has me questioning bits and pieces of myself and my life, that has me thinking about it days after I read it the first time…I feel the need to take the time to process them and then to take the time to post something along those lines as well, just to showcase what I’ve learned about myself. Two such posts come to mind in recent memory: “The Quarterlife Crisis Series: 4 Years After College” by Patrick and “Are Your Twenties How You Imagined?“, Susan’s (from 20orsomething) guest post on Generation Y Journey. Both of these posts struck a chord with me since I’ve been reflecting a lot on how much has changed in the past few years and re-evaluating what exactly it is I want out of my life now. The more I started thinking about it, the more I started to panic. I realized that my life is completely different now than it was when I was in college and everything I thought I knew about my life and what I wanted out of it back then has been completely turned upside-down. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one feeling this way (judging by Patrick and Susan’s posts) and it actually calmed me down to realize this panic is perfectly normal.
My panic started in November of 2009. I mean, I had a pretty big month:
- November 6 – hubby and I closed on our very first house
- November 11 – I turned 25
- November 15 – hubby and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary
So I started to freak out: “How could the past few years have gone by so quickly?” “I can’t be 25!” “OMG I BOUGHT A HOUSE!!” “Crap. I bought a house. Now I have a mortgage.” “Hubby and I have been married a YEAR?!” And so on and so forth. After a month or so of mild panic – keep in mind the holidays, an extremely stressful time for anyone, was right around this time too – I started to calm down. I started to feel like I could handle this; I had a schedule for paying the bills each month (important note – the fact that I handle the bills and the budget is astounding; I’m an English major who hates math and am married to a freaking engineer who loves numbers, but it works for us), turning 25 turned out to be a not-so-big deal and I made it through the holidays relatively sane. Things were stabilizing and I was feeling good about how I was handling this whole being-a-grown-up business.
January 12: my doc tells me I’m pregnant. Important note here – I had no freaking clue I was pregnant. Doc asked if she should run a pregnancy test. I say, “sure, why not”; figuring it couldn’t hurt. Doc tells me it’s positive. I think my response was, “Seriously?”
*Cue PANIC*
I had JUST gotten comfortable with the idea of being a home-owner, wife and twenty-something. Now you’re throwing Mother in the mix?! My panic led to several minor meltdowns (and OK, one HUGE meltdown at work that involved me sobbing uncontrollably in my cubicle when my boss walked in and placed a doughnut on my desk and walked away) and I still haven’t quite gotten it under control.
Some days, I’m completely okay with where I am in life. Other days, I feel this incredible pressure to juggle being excellent at job, keeping a spotless house, cooking fantastic meals, loving my husband more every day and preparing to be a super Mom (I’m lucky if I accomplish ONE of these goals per day). But most of the time, I feel this mild distress under the surface; a sense of unease, unrest and discomfort. I mean, I’m happy with my life right now; but I can’t help wondering about all those goals I had for myself when I first began my twenties. What happened to those? Am I ever going to accomplish them? Where am I going to be in the next five years of my life? *sigh*
Crap. I’m pretty sure I’m having my quarter-life crisis.
Meghan Muses 
OMG, me too. *hugs* I’ve had to give up on lots of stuff being suddenly a mom of two in two years – our house is pretty craptastic, our meals aren’t what I’d want them to be, and I certainly don’t get enough “me time,” but the big things that are important – our overall health, our relationship with our families, our happiness with our work lives, and our kids’ well-being – are really, really good. And honestly – I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I’ve done NOTHING I expected to do after college. Not a single thing (except get married). But once I let go of that drive to be perfect which I know you share :), things got amazing. Things started appearing that made sense and were wonderful and so much MORE than I could imagine in college.
So yup, count me in. Living happily through my quarterlife crisis. 🙂
Awwwwww *hugs* back at you, Smo!! I still can’t believe you’re a Mommy two-times over already 🙂
Seriously though; thinking back to late-night gatherings at D6, could we have ever imagined we would end up like we did? (Well, obvs the marriage part since we were both engaged at the time.) It’s absolutely crazy to think of much things have changed since then.
Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing anything I had planned – what happened to writing and editing for a living, why didn’t I travel more, etc. etc. – but I think you’ve got the right idea; I need to let go of the need for perfection and start to relish in the imperfect perfection that is my life now.
It is nice to know I’m not the only one out there who’s feeling this way!! I like the way you sum it up: “Living happily through my quarterlife crisis” – great way to think about it!
What I enjoy is the fact that the crisis isn’t necessarily what you did or what you are doing after college- but it’s the realization of where you are and the struggle to accept it and move on. It means that it is a time for all of us to realize life is a bit different and think of where we want to go next.
Thanks for sharing with us your story!
Excellent point, @Dmbosstone! Though I must admit, I’m just hitting the realization part now; I’m still struggling with getting to the point of acceptance. I felt like my life was on hold right after I graduated college – first living temporarily across the country while my husband finished grad school, then living at my Mom’s house temporarily until I was married and finally living in an apartment until I bought my own house. Everything was so temporary…now that things are settled, I feel like my life is moving out of the “temporary” state and into permanence.
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I know what you mean – it’s crazy how after college life starts moving so quickly and it never goes the way you expect. Though I suppose that’s half the fun!
I definitely agree, Megan! And you have an excellent point there – things turning out unexpectedly may, in fact, turn out to be half the fun – great way of looking at it!