Twentysomething.

[katernater]

I don't know where my brain has been the last couple of weeks. I mean, have you ever actually felt your personality shifting? Like, suddenly you sense your preferences and focus moving from one phase of your life to another? I'm twenty-six years old and, over the last few weeks, I've really felt the gravity of my age. Not that there's a whole lot of force behind being twenty-six or anything, except that it's typically the time in your life when you're supposed to have your act together. I suppose it's because I'll be finishing my Master's degree come December and, after that, the story is largely unwritten. I don't know if I'll have a job, or a source of steady income, or any real direction other than trying to figure out what the next sixty years of my life are going to be like. Academia has always been my rudder, and now that I've largely finished what I set out to do -- obtain a higher degree and get some life experience -- I'm sort of bereft of a gameplan. What do you do when you're about to finish the only real objective you've had since you were old enough to know what objectives actually were? Do you get a new one? Find something else? Another brass ring? A few more accolades to add to the pile? Are you allowed to take it easy? Travel? Start a novel -- or a band -- that never goes anywhere?

I look at all the people in the world who have survived being twenty-six and I just marvel that they had the resilience to get on with things. That they all seemed to have a plan for the rest of their lives or, failing that, they were able to fall into a series of happy accidents that charted their late twenties and early thirties. Where is the manual for my life, and may I please get expedited shipping?

Also, in what I hope is a completely unrelated manifestation of my subconscious, I have been dreaming about babies more and more often. But not having them, or being pregnant -- I dream about people giving me babies. Like, "Oh, we're not using this infant at the moment; KATE, DO YOU WANT A BABY?" To which my dream!self replies "Sure!" and then promptly forgets about taking care of it in favour of buying shoelaces with Sean Penn or something. I do not know what this means. I do know that, if I am too lazy to keep more than two pairs of lace-up shoes in my closet, I should not be trusted with the life of another human being.

Growing up is weird.

Comments

[highlander_ii]

pssst - there is no manual... or, if there is, my copy got lost in the mail. I *still* have no idea what I want to be when I grow up... really, no clue. And I always hated that question in school, b/c while everyone else always had answers - fireman, president, competitive eater - I never had any idea at all. None. Oh, sure, I put answers down, but looking at them, I was never sure that was what I *really* wanted to do. And yes, that includes the law thing that I'm still pondering. I really don't have the first damned clue. Not sure I ever will. And, in a way, that really sucks, b/c I don't think 'doing nothing' is all that great a way to make money. :(