The author pretending that enough cozy clothing will alleviate existential dread

It’s impossible to be a good writer without being honest, and I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you that I’m in the throes of a quarter-life crisis. It might be one of the best things to ever happen to me. 

When you try to race through life, there is inevitably a crash.

That is to say, this crisis has been a long time coming. I outgrow my skin faster than I can shed it. Growing up, birthdays were validating; each blown-out candle inched me closer to the age I felt inside. I graduated high school at 17 with two semesters of college already under my belt. By the ripe old age of 20, I had already published a book, lived and worked in Kenya, started dating the boy I’d had a crush on since I was 16, worked for a food magazine, attended one college then transferred to another, worked off and on as a photographer, spent a short-lived summer working at an insurance agency, traveled Eastern Africa alone working as a documentary photographer, got engaged to said boy, un-enrolled from college, planned a wedding, moved to Colorado, and got married.

I assumed I knew just about everything I needed to know, and racing through life kept me from thinking too much.

Reader, as you may have guessed, therein lie the fledgling beginnings of the crisis. Anytime life inevitably slowed down, I was deeply uncomfortable. I didn’t know who I was outside of the busy-ness, but I wasn’t ready to admit that to myself or anyone else yet; staying occupied was easier.

Last year I finally graduated with a degree in graphic design. After the rush of school, I was incredibly lucky to work at a design agency for awhile and, afterwards, score a sweet contract gig. Life became calmer. I was proud of myself, but it still felt like something was missing. Was this really it?

It’s almost been a year since my graduation and I still feel aimless. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of racing. Maybe it’s the culmination of a lifetime focusing on arbitrary benchmarks. Maybe it’s because, for six years, education was always something I could rely on. Maybe it’s because of the dumpster fire that is the world. Maybe it’s because I’m learning the downside of a degree chosen solely for its marketability. Maybe it’s because I’m an enneagram one and am paralyzed by the high standards I set for myself (still working on that one). Maybe it’s because despite all the schools and odd jobs and random life experiences, I still don’t know as much as I feel I “should.”

There is so much I don’t know—the crux of every crisis.

I don’t know if I can generate an income doing what I love. I don’t know if I’m on the right path. I don’t know where we’re going to be living two months from now (oh yeah, we’re moving). I don’t know the next time my family will be fully together (oh yeah, my parents are moving to Germany). I don’t know if I’m actually good at anything. I don’t know if I am capable of creating the life I want to live. I don’t know how to live life without racing through it.

At the beginning of the year, Jacob and I implemented a weekly relationship check in. Every Friday afternoon while taking a walk or having a drink, we share our roses (things we appreciated about the other person), thorns (points of contention or things that need work), and buds (what we’re looking forward to). Yeah, it’s cheesy—but it’s been a game-changer for our relationship. Anyway, I was shocked when one of Jacob’s roses last week was my existential crisis. “They’re not fun in the moment,” he explained, “but they always help us get to where we want to go.” It was perhaps the kindest thing anyone could say to me. 

He’s right, though.

Would we have existential crises if we didn’t care so much, if we didn’t desire to better ourselves, our lives, and the lives of others?

My quarter-life crisis is forcing me to take a good, hard, honest look at myself. It’s compelling me to slow down. It’s destroying barriers I’d obliviously built. It’s demanding me to process emotions I’d shoved deep. It’s dislodging mental clutter to reveal new ways of being. It’s propagating an inquisitiveness I haven’t felt in years. I couldn’t figure out why the stillness kept following me. Now I realize it’s a cue that I inner work to do.

So does it really matter if we don’t know what we’re doing? As Brittany Chaffee eloquently put it, “although the lack of awareness keeps us anxious, ‘not knowing’ keeps us curious.”

Here’s what I do know: I know that there’s something out there for me. I know that I’m meant to create. I know that I’m not interested in settling for mediocrity. I know I value the relationships in my life more than anything. I know that I have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of vision that’s meant to be shared. I know that I’m capable of figuring out what I’m supposed to go. I know that I am willing to stay curious.

If you are also in the throes of not knowing, take heart. It’s only natural to chase after external milestones instead of doing the deep, invisible inner work. But we must not allow ourselves to be crippled by where we “should” be. Taking stock of the unknown helps us remember what we do know. Stillness reveals what we truly value. Not knowing what’s next makes us more open-minded. 

There is nowhere we should be but right here.

(inspired by this post and this post)

One of the side effects of the pandemic is entirely too much time to think. Every day, it seems, I imagine a different life for myself, only to wake up the next morning and find myself in the same one. When this is over when this is over when this is over runs in a loop in my head as I dog ear another dream for later. When will it be over? I started 2020 full of questions, and a year later, I only have more. After being in college on and off for seven years, I finally graduated this year. Among my friends I’ve been the butt of a running joke: only you would go to school for so long only to graduate during a pandemic. "Officially” entering the workforce during such a severe economic downturn is distressing, and I’m very grateful to have a steady source of work at my disposal. Still, now that I’ve been spit out into the real world (whatever that means), I’m still grappling with the urgency of cultivating true meaning in my life, pandemic or not. 

Fundamentally there are really only two things required to thrive in this human experience: self-expression and connection with others.* For our ancestors these things used to occur rather naturally in a close-knit village setting. Now we turn to jobs (and romantic relationships) to fulfill primal longings that used to be satisfied by an entire community. Other than the havoc caused by the invention of the nuclear family, a main culprit is the modern American obsession with work—that is, the flawed idea that our ideal life must coincide with what we do for a living.* That’s a lot of pressure to put onto a paycheck. 

Why do we do this? Why are we assured that working for someone else is the end all be all? And, even if we manage to sidestep the altar of capitalism to achieve our shangri-la, why do we feel it’s not real unless it can be measured monetarily? Of course, there must be a way the bills, and we want to, at the very least, tolerate our day jobs. For the lucky few, maybe there is a dream job out there where self-expression and connection can coincide. For the rest of us, we can’t afford to wait for the perfect job (or for the pandemic to be over) to fulfill our essential cravings. We owe it to ourselves to think outside the box and find our own ways to feel heard and loved. 

*listen to this podcast episode—if it resonates as deeply with you as it did for me, please let’s be friends, and maybe also we should form a commune together

If you’d ask me about the second half of this winter and the spring, I could only tell you about the inconsequential moments. I made granola and let it roast too long; I took a walk; later, I watched the trees sprout leaves with aching slowness. The plants’ painstaking budding process reminded me of myself, and this was a small comfort. But what remains most vivid is the aching emptiness that grew steadily inside me as my plans for the year fell, one by one, to pieces. Of course, it’s inevitable in life to be left suddenly without the safety net of your plans—those two fickle words. Why, then, does being without them feel so miserably isolating?

In public, I laughed it off, or at least tried, and did my best to avoid the worst small talk question of them all: “so, what do you do?”. Then I came home and teetered on the edges of anxiety and hopelessness. Completing the trio of shabby feelings came shame because, after all, I still had my wonderful, supportive husband, a beautiful place to call home, money to pay the bills, bourgeoning friendships to tend, and wasn’t I being ungrateful and dramatic? Truly, life could be so much bleaker…but also, life without a specific purpose is no life at all.

Perhaps some of the struggle stems from one of the downfalls of modern Western society—too much pressure to Become Somebody, to Be the Change You Want to See, to Just Follow Your Dream, and not in two or five or ten years, but right now. This isn’t the first time I’ve battled with wanting to do it all but being unsure of what it is, the feeling that there has to be more to life. How do you balance all the forces that tug on you without freezing from fear, or doubt, or uncertainty? Where is the point of reconciliation between it all—or is there even one? I don’t have any answers yet, only questions.

I'm in a much better place now (much of the toxic fog has lifted/I've been blessed with a job, and thank goodness for that), but damn if it doesn't hurt to get knocked off your feet, however mildly. What started as taking a semester off college has now turned into a two year break, and it’s scary. I’m frightened that I’ve lost my momentum, or that my plans will fall through again, or that I’ll never figure it out. I'm wildly grateful for the people who've stood by me through this season, who've gently reminded me that these fears belong to everyone at some point. Those beautiful people made me feel a little less alone, and it's because of them that I write this—in the hopes that I, in turn, can help someone else feel less alone. I suspect that I’m not the only one who feels a bit lost, who’s had a lot of false starts, who's tired of letting pride get in the way of being truly honest. Progress isn't made in our comfort zones, and I have a hunch that things can never get better without allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.