I should be sleeping, but...

I haven't updated this thing in two weeks, so I'm just gonna list some things I have been thinking about (because I really planned to go to sleep an hour ago)!

1) If I had a dollar for every time one of my friends (or I) said, "I just need to get my life together/figure out my life!" or "What the heck am I doing with my life?" and all the variations of those phrases that you can imagine, well I think I could open up a high yield savings account with all of those dollars and retire in 5 or 10 years!

• While I feel this way all the time - who doesn't want stability and control? - every day I discover more and more that it just doesn't exist. We can all obviously do things to make our lives better and more stable (balance our budget, read, challenge ourselves intellectually/spiritually, be productive at school/jobs, nourish our relationships, etc.), but there is no "getting it together." A friend of mine said the other day that she realized she shouldn't be a relationship because she didn't have her finances in order. I laughed at her, which I think she may have taken offense to, but I just see it as a rationalization for why she does not have a boyfriend or does not need to have a boyfriend (I want it, but I shouldn't because...). It's a way to feel like she is in control. I'm not saying she (or I) shouldn't get her finances together. We all need to do that! My point is, no one is ready for the right person to pop into his/her life. We all want it, we all make excuses for why we don't have it (there are no straight men in SF), we make excuses for why we want to be single (need to get my life together, need to lose weight, etc.), but there are always things we could do better and the right person could come into our lives at any time or never. We have NO control over that.

• With all that said, I do feel like I'm going nowhere. I actually love the "Red Sox Family" that I nanny for, and the ad agency is fine as long as it lasts, but it may only be through October so then I will need another job. I have too much self-awareness to fool myself. I can't just balance my budget and feel in control, if you know what I mean. Plus, I can't seem to balance my budget because I'm not actually making enough money to live on. Whoops... Not sure what will happen when I max out those credit cards. I do kind of feel like I will be ready to go back to school. I think psychology is for me. I just needed a break.

I could ramble about this subject forever. I'll move forward.

2) In the event that I don't meet anyone, will I be happy being a cat lady? I'm not sure. People always say that is a shallow way of looking at life, and that I can be happy through work/volunteering, etc. I kind of don't think so. Sorry. But I think if I get to be 35 and I'm still single, I might just adopt kids.

• On that topic, where DO you meet people? Seriously. (And I'm not moving to Utah.)

3) EP is amazing this year, and I'm so glad to be back in the group! The MinEPeeps are just mind-blowingly good! This has nothing to do with the quarterlife crisis, but it makes me happy so I thought my avid followers (all 1 of you) would like to know.

4) I love cooking. I need to do it more. I cooked for 5 hours today and had SUCH a tasty dinner (with my roommate and her bf... I didn't just cook for 5 hours for myself).

5) I cut my hair 4 inches, got bangs and lowlights. I'm not sure if I like it, but I'm stuck with it for 3 months or so. I thought I needed a change. One of my friends is a big proponent of me putting myself out there and making a lot of changes in order to get over my last love, which ended like 6 months ago. Maybe she's right. I think my trying to change to make myself happy is a denial of reality. Then again, I can't stay miserable forever. That just seems stupid.

Okay, I'm sleepy. More later.

Blog Rebirth

All my cousins are doing it, so here I am.

Like Dillon, I used to have a blog. I religiously updated it for about 5 or 6 years. I, too, go back and shake my head at so many of those posts, although some certainly make me smile. I feel, however, that it is time to make a fresh start in the blogging world and perhaps have a more adult-like blog.

Speaking of being an adult, I must say that it is only recently that I have started to feel like an adult. Little flashes of adult-like thoughts have started crossing my mind more often than they used to. It's starting to sink in that the reality of adulthood... well, it is not all that it is cracked up to be. I have noticed that most kids just want to be adults, and most adults just want to be kids again. The funny thing is that kids want to have control of their lives... So do adults. We (so-called adults) walk around acting as though everything is stable and under control when in reality it's all totally chaotic. As a child, I remember thinking, "I'll get married, I'll have a house, I'll have a job. Everything will be stable, and it will be awesome." It turns out that it's not that easy. Let's start with the "I'll get married" part of that equation. 1) What if you don't meet the love of your life in high school or college or grad school? OR What if you met that person and it didn't work out? That question leads to number 2) What if you marry someone and you aren't happy? No one wants to get divorced. It sucks for everyone involved, but it also sucks to feel stuck in a relationship where you feel lonely. I've noticed that a lot of my married friends are miserable and stressed. Little girls dream of being swept off their feet and living happily ever after, but the day to day reality of moodiness and pet peeves and laundry and cleaning and cooking are not exactly what most of us think of when we think about marriage. I have like 15 more points on this topic, but I'll save that for another blog. Let's get to the "I'll have a house" part: 1) I don't really see a point in buying a house if I am not married. 2) Houses are flipping expensive unless you live in the BFE so you take out a mortgage and then, oh look, something else for the couple to fight about. Awesome. Now let's talk about jobs. 1) How does one KNOW what s/he wants to do? I mean, I'll probably be a psychologist because I have studied it and I am good at it. It's just so ambiguous and nuanced and often depressing. Only very rarely do I have a day where I feel like, 'YESSSS!' But what else would I do? Music is what I dream about, but like marraige, the dream and the reality are very different.

I need to sleep, so I am going to try and tie this all together. Kids imagine adulthood as having both stability and control. These years of life (the quarterlife crisis years) and the resulting turmoil (cognitive dissonance) are a function of the paradigm shifts from what adulthood looks like from a child's perspective to the reality that actually exists.