Every stage of your inevitable early-twenties crisis

Everything will be okay, I promise

Your 20th birthday can feel like a dream come true: You’re no longer a teen, and have thusly entered the world of ‘real’ adulthood. Welcome to the rest of your life, you think to yourself, it’s going to be great.

But then it’s the next day, and the pomp and circumstance has faded (even though you tried to convince your friends it’s your ‘birthday week’). The hangovers from the countless celebrations have subdued, leaving you with the clear and unmistakable realization: you are now in your twenties.

Sure, at first it’s great. Your whole life has led up to this moment. The endless after-school specials have ingrained in you a certain idea: your twenties are going to be the best times of your life. But suddenly, that far off future is now. You aren’t ready for this. You may not have finished undergrad, but you have a PhD in avoiding adult responsibilities. Cue: your mid-college crisis. You’ll probably go through a few existential crises in your life, but this is your first one, and it’s a special time. Here are all the stages you’ll go through — don’t worry, you’ll come out on the other side, good as new.

Overthinking

It’s all about staring into mirrors or off into the distance — the more angst-filled your stare, the better — and asking yourself some very important questions. What are you doing with your life? More importantly, what have you done with your life? So what if you have successfully binge watched at least 3 Netflix originals? Can’t exactly put that on a resume. Question everything. Do you even like your major? Whose idea was it to pursue Art History anyway? You probably would have been better off choosing pre-something. Are your friends really your friends? Do they really even like you? Does your dog really even like you? You probably should’ve gotten a cat.

Acknowleding your body’s slow decay

If the brain hurricane wasn’t enough, there’s the part where you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re actually getting old — your physical being is literally deteriorating. Before, you were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to take on the world; now… are those crow’s feet? Smile lines? Suddenly your body isn’t quite on board with the whole drinking-5-nights-a-week thing. You process hangovers completely differently, and it’s not going well. You wake up the next morning literally thinking: I’m getting too old for this. Before, tequila shooters seemed like a fantastic idea. Now, sitting on your couch watching Friends reruns while sipping a white wine spritzer seems like an ideal afternoon.

Panicking about post-grad life

Yeah, that. You should start obsessing over that right about now. How does this adult thing work? What even is a mortgage? Should you invest, do you even have the funds to do that? Note to self: start saving for something other than weekend beer runs. The terrifying black hole that is post-college starts sucking you in. Maybe you can avoid it, take a year off, live at home, join the Peace Corps. These are all viable, though admittedly temporary, solutions. There’s still time to take the LSAT right?

Adulting trial run

After about a 2-day bender on your first existential crisis, you’re going to start looking for an outlet, a distraction. Time to reinvent yourself. Forget January 1st and its promise of New Year, new me. How about new week, new me? If it sounds like a put-together twenty-something would be interested in, you should probably get on board. I’m talking yoga, acoustic guitar, juice cleanses, slam poetry. Anything you can successfully convince (or not so successfully convince) your friends is the next big thing can totally be your new hobby. The key is enthusiasm, not follow through. By the end of it you’ll be semi-cultured in a dozen different undertakings.

Acceptance

So you might not be put together everyday of the week. So it might take you until Wednesday each week to make it to all your classes or match your socks. The delicate art that is “adulting” takes time and practice. Your twenties may be the years of figuring it out, or floating along. You’ll try new things, find out what you like — and, perhaps more importantly, what you don’t like. You’ll lose friends and make friends, lose opportunities and gain just as many. But the nice part of life is that it’s a constant cycle of do-overs. Yes, you’ll probably be a mess. But you can always be super hot and successful in your thirties.

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