The 22 Phenomenon: A Not-Quite Quarter Life Crisis

For my friend's twenty-fifth birthday, I baked him a cake and stuck a gravestone candle in the icing. With a laugh, I told him not to worry, that he was still "over the hill." He's twenty-six now, and though we're no longer friends, I wouldn't have put a gravestone on that cake. There are only so many times you can kick a dead horse before it breaks one of your toes, and you gotta conserve some ammunition for the big 3-0.

I'm not turning twenty-five. Or twenty-six or thirty or ninety-seven (although when I do turn ninety-seven there had better be a gravestone on that cake). In a few weeks I will be twenty-two, and I'm pretty sure that's a little too young to be having a quarter life crisis, but screw the rules ladies and gentlemen, I'm having one anyway.

My best friends from high school are graduating college at the end of this semester. Three years ago, there was no doubt in my ind that I would be too. Robe, degree, educated college grin on my face as I walked. But times change, to everything there is a season, blah-fucking-blah.

But hey, let's not dwell on the past. In the name of living in the now and all that rot. I have a job, a quiet life and a loud head, and the vague notion that someday school and I might again try a meaningful relationship somewhere down the line.

Essentially though, and here's where the panic sets in, I've done jack shit with my life so far. Not graduating college or even going to big girl school—any school when it comes down to it. Never had a serious relationship with anything other than my laptop, and since gay marriage isn't legal I seriously doubt me and my one true love are going to get to live in electronic bliss. Don't live on my own, don't have a job that I'm comfortable admitting I have. I make less than a grand a month, and most of my free time is spent watching Dr. Who or The X Files.

Don't get me wrong, parts of my life I absolutely love. But there's a part of me, the ambitious, elitist bitch part of me, that holds me and my "accomplishments" thus far in utter contempt, and dreads turning twenty-two when it knows that I've checked nothing off my life's To Do list.

We can call this a self-pitying rant, if you like. But I know I'm not alone in feeling like this, if all the other jobless not-quite twenty-two year olds out there are any indication, and instead of feeling self-deprecating, I feel justified. I feel right.

Twenty-two and stuck in limbo.

Now that I think of it, I hate it when I'm right.