I feel a quarter-life crisis coming on, wait...maybe not

I said something recently that was misconstrued (this actually happens relatively often.) What I said was, “The only good thing about your 20s is being young.” Unfortunately, I said this is in front of a few coworkers that are on the wrong side of 35. They apparently thought I was saying they were old or something. Really I was just trying to say that your 20s are hard. Like, harder than I thought they’d be when I was an angst-filled teenager.

I suppose when I was younger 24 sounded old (I turn 24 in about a month.) Actually, I know it sounded old because when I say it to myself it scares the hell out of me. Funny thing is, I play soccer with people in their 40s and I NEVER think of them as being old. When I think of someone else being 30 I never have images of cakes with gravestones on them and black balloons at birthday parties.

Tell me you get that reference, please. You know when people are getting older and friends give you cakes that say “Over the hill” or something equally “witty.” And there’s a gravestone on your cake and maybe someone gives you a gag walking stick with a mirror and a horn on it. I know that wasn’t just my family. But speaking of my family, my aunt’s 50^th birthday was a year or two ago and her cake was shaped like a toilet and had like blue gelatin in the bowl with a chocolate poop floating in it. The frosting read, “Everything goes to shit after 50” or  “After 50 everything turns to crap” or something equally gross to accompany a pastry.

A coworker recently said she was having a quarter life crisis, which I feel like is pretty typical. I’m not sure there’s a person I know that's gotten through the "torturous twenties" (get it? like terrible twos, but I just made it up...whatever) that really wants to go back.

I mean, in your 20s you look pretty good, gravity hasn’t completely destroyed your appearance, running on very little sleep and crackers for lunch still magically works somehow and drinking a tad more than is necessary is accepted and a reasonable way to deal with stress. That stuff is pretty cool. Figuring out where you want to go in the future profession-wise, relationship-wise and mentally being prepared for what that all means is the opposite of cool. It's also the opposite of fun. 

Also, when you turn 24 that song "What's My Age Again" by blink-182 doesn't apply any more and that just totally sucks.

This is it, but you should really know already. 

I like being able to say I'm in my 20s, I like imagining I have a lot of time left, a lot of options, that I could go anywhere and do anything. If I wanted I could move to the Northwest and live with the hipsters or move to Cali to pursue an acting career (or be an extra or something, BUT STILL.) I could move to the Northeast and break out my black leather jacket and dull colored clothes or I could stay here in endless summer to wear shorts and bright, obnoxious patterns. But then again, you don't have to be in your 20s to do any of these things. If you know what's going to make you happy, that should drive you (I'm saying this because I sometimes feel like I've backed myself into a corner and I don't have any options. This is like a reminder to me and maybe it will like help other people or like you or stuff and junk.) 

I know there's so much time for things to fall together. There's room to make mistakes and to do the right thing. There's always time to start doing what you want to do, it just always seems like time is slipping by, that there's never enough or that you are wasting what time you do have. 

So, I'm going to give you some advice some of my soccer teammates told me today. One said "stop and smell the flowers" but the other said "stop and smell the weeds." He said this because his daughter picks the weeds and puts them in a little vase with water. You know, some weeds are the prettiest plants, I know when you were a kid (if you were a girl) you probably made crowns with those tiny white flowery things that were actually weeds. I mean, hello, everyone put dandelions behind their ears when they were yellow and blew all the little puffy things off of them when they looked like little Epcot globes (and if you didn't make a wish you were doing it wrong.)  And I like thinking about it that way better. We already stop to smell the flowers because they're pretty, they're the easy things to enjoy, but the weeds take a little more work but worth it.

I don't know where all this crunchy talk came from, but it sounds good doesn't it? 

So, this is the New Year...

In the words of one of my fav bands (Death Cab for Cutie) - "So, this is the new year, and I don't feel any different."

That's not EXACTLY true, but it definitely isn't because the Earth had a birthday or whatever. Remember when I had this blog and I was good at keeping it up and stuff and junk? Well, the holidays put a damper on my creativity and totally wore me out. Excuses, excuses I could have made time or like, wrote a little instead of watching the Big Bang Theory and Family Guy every night before going to bed. I could have done less indulging (read: drinking) when I went back to my own personal winter wonderland in Kansas. I could have refrained from watching EVERY Christmas movie I could get my hands on (that includes The Santa Claus 2... really) with my parents. But I didn't, and here we are in 2013.

Pretty sure the world isn't scheduled to end this year, so that's a cool thing. I say that now and in a few months a crazy zealot will be all over the place talking about something weird that'll wipe us all like an acid rain tornado storm. Which now that I put scary environmental things together like that willy-nilly is actually a pretty terrifying mental image. M. Night Shyamalan should totally make a movie about that. Or Michael Bay because I imagine there would be a lot of explosions involved.

I didn't make any resolutions except for to keep on with my goal of trying to make myself happy instead of worrying about what everyone else thinks. I mean, there's that goal (that everyone should have) of not doing the same stupid shit this year that we did last year.  That one is actually a lot harder than it sounds because I'm pretty sure I've already messed it up, BUT I still have 357 days to keep trying. Or failing. Potato potato... which doesn't actually make sense in print. Potato po-tah-to then, for those of you confused about my phonetic rambling.

I do feel the slightest bit different on this side of the holidays, I'm trying to think about everything being bright and shiny because, well, I hear it's better that way. I've had people tell me that good things come their way because they think good things will come their way. That kind of thinking isn't even related to karma it's just their frame of mind. They want/think they deserve good things and they get them. Simple as that. It couldn't hurt to put on the rose colored glasses for a bit, drink the Kool-Aid and all that (wait). Although the color of 2013 is emerald (see, I'm not making that up) and when mixed with rose I think that would make some sort of breen color (yea, breen, like brown/green.... think I got that from Rocko's Modern Life...) I have a good feeling kinda'.

Do you ever do that thing where you just sit and wonder where you'll be this time next year? Not like imagining where you want to be, but actually wondering what job you'll have, who you'll still be in touch with, if you'll be dating someone, single, living in the same place or if you'll be drastically different. I wonder that all the time. This time last year I was still living in Alabama and it never crossed my mind that I'd be living in Florida in a year. I never thought I'd be working for a print publication, especially not one that focuses on business (remember how I'm bad at numbers...yea.) But here I am. And if I've learned anything, even one night can change everything. One misunderstanding on Halloween can halt a friendship for months, one chance meeting at a bar can lead to taking someone home for Christmas.

Think about it.

Weird, right?