Year One

Yesterday at the dental office, I was having a conversation with a patient I’d seen before. He asked me, “How’s school going?” I had my mouth half open to say, “It’s good!” before I realized, I’m not in school. Haven’t been for almost two years, actually. What’s my deal?

Well, having been in school for 71% of my life, I guess it’s excusable, particularly on a tiring day like yesterday. And, like most people my age, I’ve been living on an academic calendar for the last 19 years. Even after I graduated college, I worked with elementary kids in a school year-length internship. One of my friends put it this way: 2011 is Year One of the rest of her (and my) life.

And it’s true. 2010 found me in school year mode till May, then an assortment of odd pursuits. I moved home in December and started my unexpected job in January. This is, indeed, Year One of the rest of my life. (Not, of course, to imply that the first 24 years were nothing and now I begin living in earnest.)

I think many 20-somethings can relate to this. We are under the impression that after college, we start “real life,” and according to some, the 20’s are the best years of our lives: full of adventure, excitement, and freedom. Ready, set, go—toss that graduation cap in the air and go get ‘em, tiger.

Not that simple. Year One, and Two and Three and Four, for that matter, can be tough years for many 20-somethings. So much so in recent years that a new term was coined to describe it: quarterlife crisis. A book by that name, co-authored by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, describes the quarterlife crisis:

“It may be the single most concentrated period during which individuals relentlessly question their future and how it will follow the events of their past. It covers the interval that encompasses the transition from the academic world to the “real” world—an age group that can range from late adolescence to the mid-thirties but is usually most intense in twentysomethings…the quarterlife crisis is a response to overwhelming instability, constant change, too many choices, and a panicked sense of helplessness…at its heart the quarterlife crisis is an identity crisis.”

Welcome to the adventure of the twenties.

To be honest, I don’t have an idea as to where I’m going with this. (Much like the quarterlife crisis…ha!). I am, however, intending a series of posts about twentysomethings and the quarterlife crisis: responses to Robbins and Wilner’s Quarterlife Crisis, to a Wall Street Journal article on a similar topic, to a chapter out of Shauna Niequist’s Bittersweet, to my own experiences and those of my friends. I hope you find it thought-provoking and heartening. Until the next one—

Here’s to Year One.