Somebody's In-between Girl

First order of business for the day:

Congratulations to Will for the job offer! I am SO proud of you, and I am really excited to hear about your new pet insurance. Watch out, world!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Existential Life Crisis has been roaring in full force for the past few days. I have never been an indecisive person. True, I don't trust my gut as much as I should, but I've generally run into my mistakes at full speed, realizing only months later the sheer stupidity of my actions. Recently, however, I feel paralyzed by the simplest of choices. Should I cancel my gym membership or keep it? Should I move into a cheaper apartment when my sister moves out? What do I want out of the wonderful world of dating? Am I doing the right thing by keeping a "day job," rather than playing full-time? Has the last year-plus of my life been one gigantic mistake? What color should I paint my toenails? Okay, so not so much on the last one, but the others are true. I feel like most of us are going through this right now. What is it about age 25 that seems to prompt this identity crisis? And why does it seem unique to our generation?

When my father turned 30, he had a major ELC. He quit his job as a high school band director, went home, and told my mom over plates of spaghetti that he was going to become an insurance salesman. He could work from home and make way more money in way less time. The only problem was this: My dad hates selling stuff. He'd sit in the basement for hours every day, staring at the phone. One day my mom got him to 'fess up that he hadn't made a single phone call. They moved to Blacksburg and entered graduate school a few months later. That decision led directly to my dad getting his current job (as, yes, a band director again), so I suppose the ELC had eventual positive ramifications. At least, I hope that's the lesson to be learned here.

The mid-twenties are, by their nature, an age of instability for most of us. Getting out of the fishbowl of school forces us out of every comfort zone we've ever known. We suddenly have to find ways of making friends without the convenience of sharing a major interest with everyone we see daily. Rather than being surrounded be people within a five-year age range, suddenly we're stuck with the label "adult." It's a word I tiptoe around like a colicky baby that's finally asleep; if I disturb it, I'll suddenly be forced to face reality and deal with my own discomfort. While the hurricane that has been plowing down my personal life for the past year seems to be subsiding (Please, not the eye of the storm. I've had enough.), I still feel my boat rocking, threatening to capsize at any minute.

I definitely used waaaaaay too many metaphors in that last paragraph, didn't I?

When I was a kid, I hated shopping. I still refuse to go clothing shopping with my mom. Why? Because, according to her, I am permanently "in between sizes." Clearly, we are all overly sensitive to our mothers' criticism of our bodies, but her analysis always makes me feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. And right now, I feel like my life is in between sizes. I'm not sure if this is just some kind of adolescent stage, where my life needs to grow into its feet (if that makes any sense), or if I just have to learn how to alter the world around me the way I alter my clothes.

I feel like this is my most convoluted post ever. I'm not really expecting any responses from the greater world, but does anyone else feel this way? Are there any good answers out there?