We are the 23-year-olds. We are the ones squirming in our chairs at the office because we still feel awkward in our grown-up clothes. We strut through city streets with eyes cast toward our screens, desperately seeking any source that will tell us the decisions weve made are valid. We work hard in jobs we arent sure we want to make those fancy degrees feel worth it, and we date people we arent sure we love to make everything feel less lonely. We spend hours drinking wine on apartment floors, promising one another that those who broke our hearts will not own us forever. We zone out in grad school classrooms or type away in junior offices or teach English in Rwanda, all the while wondering if we are supposed to be somewhere else. We are 23, and hangovers hurt now. Most of our conversations these days center on assuring one another we are going to be okay. We are proud of each other but hard on ourselves. When a friend does something as simple as cooking a food more complex than pasta, we applaud her, yet we berate ourselves for not yet having a corner office or a bestselling memoir or a thriving startup. We dance all night to Taylor Swift because she understands. We love who we want, and we hate labels. We are not in college anymore, and weve just become too old to crash their parties. Everyone we know no longer lives on the same block, and we long for the days of running back and forth between houses at 1 a.m. We have few obligations, yet we are always stressed, wondering if life will ever be more certain. Perfection.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 03:44:01 +0000
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