I will open my insanely sporadic, non-unified blog with a short sampling from a very inspirational article written by the brilliant Kate Carraway. I go in & out of bouts with struggling through mini-quarter-life-crises WEEKLY people! I am the walking textbook definition of it. I want to be rich, famous, giving, caring, confident, appealing, witty, funny, intelligent, mysterious, a great daughter, the perfect girlfriend, a model employee, the best older sister, ingenious chef, a stunning mother (obviously way, wayy, down the road), & the best of a friend. Within these groups of identities I seek are sub-groups!! It’s a wonder I have time to think about anything else but myself. So here is my quest to be me, find me, & reach my goal in life – whatever that may be. I’m going to kick the QuarterLife Crisis right in the knees, & just live. Live without rules, without panic attacks, without to-do lists, & without perfection. If I set my sights on being perfect, I’m going to land no-where but flat on my ass, & probably alone with cats.


[[“The phenomenon, known as the “Quarterlife Crisis,” is as ubiquitous as it is intangible. Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middle class and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation. They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are, and they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want.]]

When a contemporary 25-year-old’s parents were 25, they weren’t concerned with keeping their options open: they were purposefully buying houses, making babies and making partner. Now, who we are and what we do is up to us, unbound to existing communities, families and class structures that offer leisure and self-determination to just a few. Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities. Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work. You’re never going to have sex again because you’re going to get married. Your life is over. There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the f--k up.”
                               - Kate Carraway & Michael Kimmel
'Because nobody likes a crotchety old spinster with cats.

Welp..here goes nothing ... Stay tuned!

-xoA

(The fish below will follow your mouse...and if you click within their pond you can drop food for them! (so cute) )