Signs of a quarter-life crisis
Last Halloween after a midnight booze cruise on the Hudson, in a drunken teary tantrum, my 20-year-old cousin accused me and our 26-year-old cousin of not being fun anymore as our cab zipped past our Meat Packing after-party. Just for visual interest we were all dressed as Harajuku Girls. See below.
Slutty, slightly offensive, and inebriated. Whatever happened to trick-or-treat?
Bratty Younger Cousin: “You just want to have babies! I’m in New York for the first time and I want to go out!”
Me, the Offended 24 Year-Old: “You’re being such a brat. We’re not going to the club now because the line’s a mile long, and it’s cold, and I need to pee. We’ll come back in like an hour.”
Old Fart Cousin: “…actually, I do want to have babies.” (NOT helping at all)
While I’m definitely not into having babies yet, truth is, I had no desire to stay out. I guess what the anecdote is trying to say is yeah, my cousins might onto something: I’m getting too old for this shit.
The signs: I’ve thrown out all my party dresses and costume-jewelry. I’ve stopped mingling with strangers at bars. I buy my own drinks. I say I’m busy doing homework on Saturday nights when I’m actually nursing a bottle of wine and streaming Netflix. Life has slowed down for this now-25-year old. In my early 20s, curling my hair and stuffing my feet into ridiculously painful high heels and consuming near-lethal amounts of alcohol occurred every other night, and now just thinking about it exhausts me. In fact, as a testament to how pathetic I’ve become, right now I’m in the NYU library BLOGGING at 9 p.m. and it’s not even required for a grade anymore.
This is the quarter-life crisis isn’t it? Work full time M-F, getting tired by 11 p.m., social circle consisting of the boyfriend (on Skype, no less) and Facebook. I made fun of people who lived like this—swore that would never be me—and now I’m one of them and my Oil of Olay night time anti-wrinkle cream seconds it. This is what growing up is like—stability, consistency and sensible flats. The incessantly-ticking biological clock is telling us post-college 20somethings to get a job, get married, have kids, contribute to society. Is this why all the hippies became Republicans?
Anyway, I’m just going to go down the denial route. Quarter-life crises are for pansies. 25 is the new 18! Under rug swept. This summer, I’m going to (try and) be cool again. I’m moving to Brooklyn and living with a 22 year-old. I’m gonna do stuff!
Oh, back to Halloween. We never ended up going out. The Brat was way too weepy and we called it a night. The next day, just to prove a point, my cousins and I went back to Meat Packing and got hammered. On a Sunday night. In your face, Life!
