In March of this year I turned 25. Writing that sentence out feels surreal for so many reasons, but I think the most jarring thing about that statement is that I feel so far from that age, yet it is already almost another chapter behind. I have always heard about “quarter life crisis” and “midlife crises”, but I never saw those circumstances happening to me. Boy was I wrong. Let’s discuss the realness of a quarter life crisis.
First thing is first, I truly cannot comprehend that I am fully an adult. There are still times where I am sitting at the doctor’s office or making an appointment for something and it dawns on me that my mom isn’t there to hold my hand anymore. She isn’t an arms length away, she’s four hours away. I can’t make excuses for not going grocery shopping, or forgetting to pay bills because those are my responsibilities now. Leaving the nest was more like being dropped from a tree; I was never really ready but it was happening before I could stop it.
I took a couple of gap years during my college career, which makes me a good 3-4 years older than a lot of my friends and peers. This means that I am experiencing this weird dissonance between being closer to 30 than I am to being a teenager, but being surrounded by people who have just entered into their 20s makes me feel so much younger. I feel younger now than I did at 20, which is hard to wrap my head around.
What people do not tell you about this time in life is that you feel like you are in this purgatory of stepping into the rest of your life, but not yet having the amount of control needed to do so. I am busying myself with 2 two jobs, 2 internships, and going to school full-time, so I do not even have the time to sit and revel in this season of life. Is this being an adult? Is this what it feels like?
Regardless, here is the main thing I have taken away from the 25th chapter of my life: time is an illusion. Days bleed together, months and years fly by, and there is no way to stop it. I feel 19 and 25 and 40 all at once. I still feel like I am in high school, but I haven’t been in 7 years. I want my life to slow down. If I could stay at this age forever, I would.
