The Coming of Age Crisis
There's this waiting trap that sits just feet away from me. It’s completely visible but that doesn’t mean it's avoidable. In fact it only makes it that much more nauseating.
A surprise is a surprise. No time to dwell, no time to let the anxiety build, no time to panic. It’s right in front of you but only when it's time to be dealt with.
Adulthood is the contrary. I can see my thirties waiting for me. Smiling at me while sitting over the cliff, those languid feet dangling over the ledge. It's incredibly hard to smile back. To hold any of that excitement or even that contentment for my future.
In ten years, I probably won’t recognize myself. Maybe I’ll have a big girl job and create work that’s meaningful and passionate. Maybe I’ll be a mother. A wife. A traveler. Maybe I’ll be none of those things. Or maybe I’ll be all of those things. It’s truly the uncertainty that really gets to me. I’m a planner by day and anxious by night.
I don’t know what I want and I’m even more worried that in the next ten years, hell, maybe in the next twenty, I still won’t know.
Sure, there’s the chance that I’ll look back at this phase and laugh at the person that I once was. But then there’s that little bit of leeway, leftover space for my own personal resentment. Being 30, 40 or 50 and looking back in anger that I never built my life the way I should have. That some sort of time was wasted.
I’ve always been a bit of a floater. I want to do everything and be everything. Sometimes just because I can, but most times because I want to.
However, the older I get, the more the crushing weight of stability deflates my balloon. So often, I find myself weighing the gift that peace and security can bring and the merits of finding multiple versions of joy. And the pressure to do this right. To do life right.
It’s overwhelming. It makes my brain hurt and my stomach heavy. And it sucks the joy out of finding meaning, whichever way I can.
The only thing that roots me and slows me down is the reminder that over the last ten years, I’ve been forced to adapt. Get out of my head a bit more. Understand the world a bit more. I’ve been forced to adopt the motto, “no matter what life goes on.” And it does.
In these big gaps of time, there are milestones that I want to achieve and regardless if I do or don't, life will go on. It has to. I can always bet on that. Whatever it is, no matter how bad it is, there isn’t a guarantee that I can fix it or make it right, but it reminds me that I have time to figure it out.
Until age steals my breath, I have time to figure it out. ◆