Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Re-inventing yourself as an adult

How many of you longingly hold onto your childhood, teenage and early twenties years for as long as you can? How many feel that you have truly come into your own as an adult and only look back occasionally at those effervescent past times? Do any of you think you know exactly who you are as a child, yet you have no idea who you are as an adult? Welcome to my world. I'd say for the past 5 years or so, I have essentially been in a quarter life crisis that I can't work my way out of.

On this blog, I write about life and careers of our fellow twenty somethings. I can spit out a load of things about my career aspirations, yet I have no idea what type of person I want to become, what kind of mother I'll be and most importantly for me, which friends I'll have by my side throughout.

See, I grew up with the best friends a girl could ever ask for. I didn't exactly live with the Partridge family, so my best friends were very important to me and they truly were like family. Growing up, I always thought these brothers and sisters of mine, would stay that way forever. We'd be at each other's weddings, we'd have babies together and while the babies would go to the same play groups, us moms would sip tea somewhere on a patio and chat. Everything felt this way until the time we were were graduating from college. (5 or so years ago) As people moved to all sides of the country, things began to change. Phone calls happened less often and life became routine without these people in my life. It has always made me sad, but I didn't realize the true heartbreak of it until some of us started getting married. I haven't been invited to some weddings that I always thought I'd be at for sure. I understand, we simply don't keep in touch enough and weddings can get very expensive. But it hurts. So, I have attempted to keep in better touch. I will send emails and call and do my best, sometimes with success and sometimes without. What can you do if it just doesn't work? Should you keep trying or just focus on the few that really matter and who do make an effort to stay in touch?


Maybe, I just need to focus on creating more exciting and happy things in my adult life, instead of wishing for the past. Perhaps my adult life isn't getting as much attention, and it's waiting for me to do something amazing with it, while always having those past memories. Can anyone relate?

3 comments:

Gracie said...

That's the spirit! Go do something AMAZING and keep doing those things - even it's just amazing to you. I know exactly how you feel!
Good luck, writing about it helps, promise! =)

Kate (Berry) Tompkins said...

You are soo good at articulating this stuff Am, I feel you- I TOTALLY feel you.

Jared said...

I'm leaving my twenties soon, and having switched career choices several years ago, I've been in one of these periods recently. I actually don't look back that much, but instead I'm impatient for a clearer future to appear. Anyway, this was an interesting post. I very much agree with your conclusion. The more I have tried to do new things and have various experinces, the clearer things come into focus. Oh, and I also think it's a good idea to just keep adding skills while you're figuring it all out.