The Quarter-Life Crisis is Setting in…Big Time

This is pretty much how I've felt lately.

I turn 25 on Thursday. I remember when I was five, cooking dinner at my PlaySkool kitchen, and imagining myself at this age living in an all-brick house with my husband, two cats, golden retriever and a baby on the way.

What the f was I thinking??!!

I guess I figured since my mom married my dad at 24 and had me at 25, that life would pan out similarly for me. (Interesting family fact: my mom had me at 25, my grandma had my mom at 25, and my great-grandmother had my grandma at 25. Don’t worry, I’ve been making The Hoff double-bag it just in case history decides to repeat itself for the fourth time.)

I’m definitely nowhere close to getting married and the idea of a baby terrifies me. (Maybe it’s the breastfeeding calls I get from women fighting back tears while they tell me that the skin on their nipple has completely fallen off. Dear God, the girls ache just thinking about that.)

But at this point in my life, with my friends going in a million different directions, it really makes me stop and wonder if I’m on the right path.

There are those friends who have gotten married, bought a house and are settling into domestic bliss; the ones who are in grad school/law school/med school, studying ridiculous hard and partying even harder (as my friend Law Student put it, “when I was in undergrad, I drank more to be social, in law school, I drink to get obliterated”); and the ones like me, who work boring 9-5 jobs and then drink the weekends away, only to curse Monday when it rolls around again, all the while trying to navigate the dating scene, or lack there of. (I apologize for that atrocious run-on sentence.)

Which begs the question: Is this really what life is about?

Since college, I kinda feel like I’ve been skydiving without a parachute- just free-falling and desperately hoping to find a way to avoid hitting the ground/a tree/side of a mountain. Definitely feel like I’ve come close a few times…

Not a very uplifting analogy, but you get the idea.

So, where do I go from here?

I picked a career (print journalism) with a very bleak future. After finally landing a job in that field, I was laid off 14 months later. Now, I’m working somewhere that has nothing to do with my skills, talents or degree and I have to fight the urge to smash my head against the wall fifty times a day due to boredom. Do I pick a new career path? Go back to school? Keep trying to land my dream job?

I live in a city that I like, but don’t love. I’m a southern girl, and I miss people saying “y’all,” holding my door open for me, random strangers striking up a conversation and peaceful drivers who don’t honk every two seconds. But I also enjoy how much there is to do here, how I haven’t even put a dent into all the museums, art galleries, exhibits there are to visit, and the fact that I can go out at night and not run into ten people from my high school. As The Clash so epically sang, “Should I stay or should I go?”

I guess this is where things get scary – the unknown/uncertain. What you want out of life, who you want in it, even where you want to live your life.

All questions to ponder/reflect on/freak out about I suppose. In the meantime, I'll hold firm to the belief that I’ll eventually grow some wings to help me fly like that damn eagle the Steve Miller Band was talking about and land blissfully into the life I want for myself.