Instead of blissfully embracing the transitional period that follows important life milestones and flinging myself into the confounding throes of adulthood like everyone around me, I’m kind of having a midlife crisis. The internet defines a midlife crisis as “a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in early middle-aged individuals and even though I'm only 18, the symptoms are very much the same. While I may not be middle-aged and have only been on this planet for a little less than two decades, I feel that time warrants some deep reflection, especially after something as temporally significant as graduating.
Big life events like this have a way of violently shaking us from the bleak monotony of every day just long enough for us to look around and wonder, “Where did the time go?” or at least let out a restrained gasp in acknowledgment of how old we think we’ve gotten. The panic that comes with realizing time has passed us by can jolt us awake and trigger any number of personal crises within an individual, regardless of age.
A part of me believes it is necessary and certainly helpful to look back and try to construct some meaning out of our passed years, however, there comes a time when that reflection and assessment can become debilitating. When I think about how fast I seemed to have reached my current age and how random the cosmic lottery we call a universe can be at times, I am utterly paralyzed. Sometimes I am astounded at the simple fact that people can possess this knowledge and still consciously choose to get out of bed every day when the past couple of weeks, I've found myself being almost physically weighed down by my own concern for how fleeting time is and my anxieties about the future. Oh, and our Western culture’s obsession with youth probably isn't helping either.
But, while I am sometimes paralyzed by my internal crisis, I am also motivated by it. The knowledge that life is short and entirely what you make of it is what wakes me up every day and makes me coffee. It’s what drives me to be a good friend and make choices that will make the people I love proud to love me in return. It’s also what compels me to take risks and construct a life I can be proud of. Maybe midlife crises were meant to serve as some sort of evolutionary stop-gap that gives us the motivation to make the most of our short time in the sun, but they also give me a pretty great excuse to go impulse shopping.
So, while I am not buying an expensive car (because student loans are a thing) or dying my hair in some sad attempt at recapturing my youth, I am trying to live more broadly. I’m taking this brief pause before the next chapter begins and trying to reset myself or, at least reprogram myself to enjoy every moment as it happens and not lose time or mental energy on worrying about what comes next. To paraphrase, a very wise cartoon dog once said the key to happiness is not to search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with things that make you truly happy. Life terrifies me but, it also inspires and excites me in such profound ways that I have no choice but to embrace it; and while recently it has been the source of a lot of emotional fatigue, I’m learning to appreciate my awareness of how fast things change because at least I’m here to see it.
