John Mayer's song "why Georgia why" says " it might be a quarter life crisis, or just a stirring in my soul, either way i worry sometimes about the outcome of a still verdictless life...am i livin' it right"
this might be a quarter life crisis or just a stirring in my soul, all I know is that something has gotta give.
My friends at Wikipedia define a quarter life crisis as a term applied to the Period of life immediately following the major changes of adolescence usually ranging from the late teens to early thirties. During this this time one may experience unsettling emotions and insecurities (check) in the context of a quarter life crisis they occur shortly after a young person, usually an educated professional, in this context, enters the "real world" after entering adult life and coming to terms with its responsibilities, some individuals find themselves experiencing career stagnation (check) or extreme insecurity, the individual often realizes the real world is tougher, more competitive and less forgiving then he/she imagined. They later describe a quarter life crisis as experiencing a "graying" of emotions"
A graying of emotions. I couldn't have put it more perfectly. As an artist color makes sense to me. You start with your primary Red, Blue and Yellow and pairing that with the (oh so complex) color wheel we all learned in kindergarten one can create any color. Its simple!!! I wish life were as simple as painting. I wish I could lay down a picture of everything I want to become and mix and match 'til I get it just right. To me painting makes sense. Colors I get, shading I understand. I use to live in a world where black was black and white was white. The older I get and the more I understand of this world i realize that the world we live in is gray and it is in the Shades that beauty is found. In this time, this age I am the color gray. The thing that is fascinating about the color gray that the shades are unending. The multitude of shades in between black and white are all necessary to create a beautiful picture full of dimension and life.
I feel that my life is a beautiful picture of grays. Its not a depressing thing but a good thing. A few months ago, starting back in October, I began to feel an itch for some change. I feel this itch from time to time. It sweeps in like the changing winds. Like the winds are changing me. I have a great life. I have more wonderful, sacrificial, loving and supportive friends then one person should be allowed in a life time. I have a wonderful kind loving family, a dog who makes me laugh so hard I cry sometimes, few financial burdens and a job that most people my age would kill for. I am running a homeless shelter for homeless and run away youth ages 14-17. Rewarding, yes, but challenging beyond words. When I graduated college my future seemed so bright, the possibilities seemed endless. Though I suffered a few painful months in retail my perfect job was pretty much handed to me. I started working with the shelter as a direct care worker hanging out with teenagers all day. A few months in I was promoted to shelter assistant and about a year ago I was promoted to shelter manager. 24 years old and I managed a shelter. Needless to say this was a challenge and by January about a year into my managerial position, I was completely and utterly burnt out. I felt as though my job literally sucked the life out of me (that's a story for another blog) Something had to give. my world that was once so wonderful and colorful now seemed dull and lifeless, until one day when a colleague told me something that changed my life. We had been working on some very difficult cases involving child protective services ( a collaboration I had been utilizing entirely too much) in discussing a case I said something sarcastically like "I'm never having kids, because kids turn into teenagers" he said he had raised 4 wonderful children and encouraged me to take heart and realize that "this is not real life" this is someones reality, but it is not your reality...it's not real life.
These words along with a conversation i had with my boss about where I saw myself in 5 years made me realize that if this was "it" and I had "arrived" I would most definitely end up miserable ... probably alone (with at least 100 cats) living in a world where people suck the life out of me and I die alone (and my cats unleash their deadly rabies to the world turning humanity into zombies) ...dramatic I know. Though I'm joking about the cats these fears solidified the change that had been festering inside of me. It is time for action. Anxiety rules my life, stress and worry sandwiched between a lack of respect from clients and their parents followed by a big old bottle of disappointment. This would be my life.
Things had gotten to the point where, as scary as it would be to leave, it would be scarier yet to stay. I have not arrived, I am not the person I know I can be the person I want to be. I have not met the goals I have placed for myself. One of those goals was grad school. during this mess of a winter I began the application process into a seminary in Colorado that a friend of mine was attending. By the beginning of march I was accepted (again another story for another time)
Things are changing, I quit my job, I'm moving to Denver CO, and I'm ready. I'm ready to embrace my grayness and work my way back into the world of color. But for now, I'm content where I am and I'm finding beauty in the mess that is the age of 25. I'm no longer a child, I still don't quite feel like a grown up, but I am growing up. The growing pains are unbearable at time, but I take heart in knowing that in the end I will be complete. I feel like Peter pan put it best when he said "to live would be an awfully big adventure" Ive never been the Big fish in a little pond type and I'm still looking for my niche, but i feel in getting there. I'm ready for a new adventure to start off my next quarter of life.
