i turn 21 in 24 days. i’m scared.
I don’t think I’m old enough to be 21. Does that make sense?
Is it possible to have a midlife crisis at the age of 20 and 11 months? I actually feel like I’ve been in the middle of said crisis for the past three or four years.
I vividly remember sitting in Spanish class my senior year of high school, not processing anything the teacher was saying, and absolutely trying my hardest to not break down crying. Why? Because I felt like my life was flying by and I hadn’t accomplished anything. I wanted to have some big, dramatic, life-changing epiphany or to save the world or to experience something insane. I don’t really know what, exactly, I thought I should have been doing with my 17 or 18 year old life.
I think it was simply so mundane and repetitive that it slowly started to wear on me. Plus, I was graduating high school that year and I definitely did not have the One Tree Hill or a 90210 type experience I was expecting when I was 13 years old.
Every day was pretty much the same. School, practice, homework, sleep. Even on the weekends, my friends and I never really did anything memorable. Or maybe we did and I just don’t remember. So, not memorable to me at least.
I played a lot of sports, so maybe that’s why I didn’t have that drama-filled tv show type life. I stayed out of trouble and did enjoy sports, but it sometimes felt like that’s all I was. All my life was. School and sports. When people asked what I did for fun besides that, what did I say? Uhhh watch Netflix? Sometimes I’d draw a picture if I was really bored.
Anyway, as I sat in that Spanish class, I realized my life was flying by. I would be going off to college in a few months (which I was extremely excited about) but then what? If college was anything like high school, it would fly by before I even realized it. So what happens next? I get a job, get married, have 2.5 kids, live in the suburbs and then be old and never have any of the adventures you read or watch movies about?
Now that I think about it, that life I was terrified of actually sounds like a pretty good deal to me, as long as my family and I are happy and healthy. BUT it still scares me. It’s coming too freaking fast.
When you talk to the elderly, they get this wistful look in their eyes when they talk about their life as kids. Is it youth their missing or their memories? They say time flies and I believe it. I just want those great memories to look back on and to be content with the life I’ve lived when all I can do is remember.
I’m halfway through college and as I try to plan for my future, I can’t help but think what it would have been like if I, I don’t know, travelled the world or did something that I absolutely love. It’s just so difficult to think of something to do in my future like that. I have a list of about 20 different jobs I think would be cool to do. I’m so indecisive that I want to do ALL of them — which doesn’t exactly seem practical or possible.
I can’t help but think life is just so boring.
We all constantly think about the future and providing a good quality of life for ourselves and family that I can’t help but constantly daydream of living in an alternate reality. Like I’m a character in a book or movie. I know that’s extremely unrealistic but as I sit here writing this, it seems much more enjoyable than thinking about the fact that I’ve lived almost 21 years and have accomplished essentially nothing.
Again, I don’t feel like I’m old enough to be 21. I don’t feel mature enough. Or maybe I don’t feel independent enough.
Whatever it is, I am now making a vow to myself to find the beauty and adventures of my everyday life. Stop and smell the roses — and whatnot. Get out of that alternate reality inside my head, no matter how comforting it seems to be.
