quarter life crisis

It may come as a surprise to thoes of you that know me, but I've been feeling fairly deep as of late and after reading an annoymous blog, I was inspired to share my own feelings.
The first time I thought of the term 'quarter life crisis' was when I turned twenty. I freaked out. I was acting like some crazed menopausal forty something and the truth is I felt old. I'm sure any forty something that may happen to stumble across this will be digusted/horrified/annoyed but I'm just being honest. When I am having my more sensible moments I realise that I am not old and that I still have the majority of my life left to live, but sometimes I do kind of think, "Shit, where'd the time go?"

At the beginning of the summer, something big happened in my life, that confirmed for me, that I was indeed, having a quarter life crisis. After speaking to several of my girlfriends, I realised that the majority of them were feeling the same, just of varying degrees. It's everything from outgrowing your childhood sweetheart to realising that you did completely the wrong college course; some people are as extreme as "Who am I?" and "What the fuck am I doing with my life?"

As much as we moan about it while we're there, school seems so easy looking back: you wake up, throw on a uniform, then get to hang out with your friends all day. Do a few hours of homework (or not in some cases) then hang out with your friends some more. Even after school, it still seemed fairly simple: stay in education, or get a job. But then a few years down the line you either realise that you're in a dead end job or that you have fuck all idea what you're going to do now that the education bit is done.

I haven't had a "What the fuck am I doing with my life?" moment yet. In fact I feel pretty secure in what I want to do for the next 5, maybe even 10 years. But there's this massive part of me that can't help looking back on school days with a sense of nostalgia and wishing I could have just one more go. Not even the whole of school, maybe just like year 10 and 11. It doesn't help that I've got a beautiful and popular sister who has just gone into year 10 as a constant reminder of what I'm missing. What really brought it home to me today, was sitting in a travel agent, struggling to think of just 10 people from school that I would genuinely like to go on holiday with; now rewind back 4 or 5 years and I could have given you at least 20 without pausing for breathe. Another thing that depressed me was reading a message in my year book from one of my best males friends saying "I will never forget you nor will I let you forget me." My, how times change eh?

Thing is, I do love my life, I'm exactly where I want to be, with exactly who I want to be with. Maybe the problem is that I need closure on my teenage years. It all happened so fast and all of a sudden I was 'grown up' before I even realised that I was growing up. I think it's the realisation, that no we may not be old, far from it, but the fact of the matter is, we are not children anymore and I for one find that scary as shit. I will probably look back on this in another twenty years time and laugh at my silly, naive, twenty year old self for being so melodramatic, but right now this is real for me and this is how I feel, and I know I'm not the only one.