What did you worry about in your mid- to late-20s? (If you're that age now, what *do* you worry about?) An Oldster Magazine open thread, for everyone, of all ages.
It was the 60's and while working full time I was worried about paying the rent and putting food on the table. Surprised? I was also worried about getting pregnant because contraception was not legal, nor was abortion. I could not afford college, not even night school so there was no consideration of a career. As a woman I was paid half of what the men were paid doing the same job. Vietnam was front and center as were the deaths of JKF, MLK, and RFK. Our world was a mess and hope was being assassinated. 29 loomed and the prevailing thought of the time was that everything ended at 30. Now I am 80 years old and have survived all the things I feared and many I never thought of. I am in the process of discovering who I really am and how I want to spend my remaining years.
At age 87 I say this: one should welcome a 'mid-life crisis' every five years or so, to clear out the accumulated detritus and get a clearer perspective.
70 here. Thinking I'm finally old enough to have a quarter-life crisis. That's not because I'm feeling perpetually young; it's because I'm at a stage of acute awareness -- awareness of the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual parts of me.
My 20s were depressingly sad years. A young mother of two, living with a gaslighting, controlling husband who preferred I stay home, not drive, and especially not look at another man. Ever. It was the 70s. I'm a product of the 50s -- not much encouragement to "become" much more than a housewife. Anxiety filled my days. Fear and insecurity haunted my nights. Being told I was never pretty enough or skinny enough led to more insecurity. It wasn't until I was 27 that I left my immature husband and began the long journey of becoming.
If I could say anything to that young 20-something pretty, smart, intuitive girl, it would be, "You are enough. You were always enough."
I had an illegal abortion when I was 21 and spent the next 50 years worrying about how to keep it a secret. (Now I'm writing a book about it, so the secret-keeping part is over). By the time I was 25, I was married and living in Germany with my husband and our 1-year-old daughter. When I was 30 we moved back to the U.S. with three kids. So I spent my mid- to late-20s trying to learn German, navigate a foreign culture, and raise young children. We didn't have enough money for a car or a washing machine. I have a clear memory of packing my laundry and my kids into the stroller and the baby carrier and walking up a steep hill to the laundromat. I worried mainly about getting through each day without losing my mind.
I’m 23, (so not sure if this falls into your category of people) and I feel pressured to “be young” and “enjoy life”. Many people I meet who are in their 30s and 40s tell me that I have “youth as your advantage” and it gives me an excuse or justified reason to be reckless, try, and fail. It sometimes makes me feel pathetic to want to grow slowly and steadily (instead of dream big and busy), have one on one small coffee chats (instead of partying), and wanting to spend a few weeks with my grandma in the countryside (rather than traveling to new cities).
There’s a pressure to be lively and adventurous, as if this sparkle would fade with age, as if there’s a clock ticking above my head that everyone but me can see
Good topic, thanks. I remember having a very depressed 29th birthday. I'd realised I was never going to be remarkable and it stung. (I blush now at this arrogant and privileged youthful assumption.) Slowly, I made peace with just being me and ordinary. Looking back, I realise some remarkable things did occur for me. Hang in there, twenty-somethings.
Love this, Sari! I'm in my late 20's and feel the pressure to achieve my biggest career milestones before 30 (...?!). I don't consciously believe this to be true, but I feel that pressure lingering beneath the surface, somewhere in a dusty corner of my mind. Perhaps perpetuated by things like "Forbes 30 under 30" !! I call bullshit on all of it!
I got married at 22 and had a baby at 23, but by 28 hadn't published a book. I worked in a bookstore and just wanted a short paperback romance out there while I learned how to write a bigger novel. When an editor from Harlequin called me to buy my book, I said, "Oh my God, I was almost 30 before it happened!" I wrote three romances, lived a bunch of life, most of it surprising, and today, at almost 57, think I'm ready to write that bigger novel.
At 25, I was a self-obsessed mess and had zero self-respect. Was I thin enough? Would I ever find real and lasting love--and if I couldn't find real love, could I at least get laid now and then? Where's the party? Would I ever realize my creative ambitions? Oh, and dodging the collection agencies--good thing I had an answering machine and could screen calls (this was back in the 80s).
At 68, I am friends with my body, most days. I found (and kept) real and lasting love, am debt-free, and am realizing my creative ambitions. I have self-respect and adult life skills. A miracle!
I worried all the time (not necessarily a crisis, just an undiagnosed general anxiety disorder). Some of the top worries:
* was I right to go to grad school to study art history
* would I regret not wanting kids
* the state of the world
* was I going to get MS (my mom had it)
I’m now 55, worry much less and no more panic attacks thanks to therapy and meds. And I don’t regret not having kids and thankfully I did not get MS. I left grad school before finishing my PhD and didn’t get employment in art history, but I’m glad I did it
I have often thought about the quarter life crisis as being something very real and difficult. There is so much pressure to go to college or get a job and achieve and then by the time you’re 25 you’re like am I even using any of this? What is the point of any of this? Do I want to do this? It’s the time where you’ve had enough space away from either parents or general societal expectations or both deciding what is best for you. And then you’re in the space of “real life” and if you haven’t hit those markers, it can feel really scary when the world is telling you you should have.
When I was around 25, I worried about coming out to my conservative religious parents and whether I could be out of the closet in the workplace. At the time, the mid 1970s, I was a high school English teacher.
OK I'll bite. When I was 25 I was in what I thought was a serious relationship and I began to have a strong urge to have children. My boyfriend was one year younger and this basically frightened him off. After this relationship broke up, which was devastating for me, my bio clock went right back to sleep and I didn't seriously think about having children again until I was in my late thirties. Yes, I worked on my "career" (using my writing skills to earn a living -- in community journalism, educational writing and editing, copy editing -- while wanting to be a "real" writer). At 39, I had my first and only child after 10 years with my partner/husband. As one might expect, the next 19 years were spent raising that beautiful new person while continuing to earn a quotidian living and filling reams of journals and notebooks with "real" writing. Somewhere in there I became a psychotherapist, and I just finished that (for now) at age 65. I have no real regrets, but I do wonder how things might have turned out if I had decided to remain single at 25 and really concentrate on my life's dream of writing novels and creative nonfiction. I'm wondering right now if I have the get-up-and-go to pursue that dream at this stage of life.
I definitely had a quarter life crisis. When I was 26 I moved to NYC, just like I always wanted, and got a job in the entertainment industry, just like I always wanted. In some ways, they were the best four years of my life. According to the journals I kept, though, I was constantly afraid and anxious that it would all abruptly end. One wrong move - a layoff, our sublet being sold, you name it - and the whole house of cards would collapse and I’d end up back at my mom’s house in suburban NJ. I was a worrier in general, and I remember what a drain it was. Now I’m 57 and feel much more secure in every way - mentally, emotionally, career-wise. I guess the u-curve really applies.
I worried about finding someone to fall in love with and being loved back, paying my bills, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, being thin, getting over depression, whether or not I should have kids. Now I just worry about paying my bills, and even that, not as much, not because I have money, but because I have more faith that everything will be okay, as I've been shown time and time again. And no, never had kids, and I'm good with that.
In my 20’s I was obsessed I might be missing events, people, movies, concerts, art exhibitions, trips, even jobs: FOMO controlled my life. It is such a relief that now in my early 50’s things have changed.
It was the 60's and while working full time I was worried about paying the rent and putting food on the table. Surprised? I was also worried about getting pregnant because contraception was not legal, nor was abortion. I could not afford college, not even night school so there was no consideration of a career. As a woman I was paid half of what the men were paid doing the same job. Vietnam was front and center as were the deaths of JKF, MLK, and RFK. Our world was a mess and hope was being assassinated. 29 loomed and the prevailing thought of the time was that everything ended at 30. Now I am 80 years old and have survived all the things I feared and many I never thought of. I am in the process of discovering who I really am and how I want to spend my remaining years.
At age 87 I say this: one should welcome a 'mid-life crisis' every five years or so, to clear out the accumulated detritus and get a clearer perspective.
70 here. Thinking I'm finally old enough to have a quarter-life crisis. That's not because I'm feeling perpetually young; it's because I'm at a stage of acute awareness -- awareness of the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual parts of me.
My 20s were depressingly sad years. A young mother of two, living with a gaslighting, controlling husband who preferred I stay home, not drive, and especially not look at another man. Ever. It was the 70s. I'm a product of the 50s -- not much encouragement to "become" much more than a housewife. Anxiety filled my days. Fear and insecurity haunted my nights. Being told I was never pretty enough or skinny enough led to more insecurity. It wasn't until I was 27 that I left my immature husband and began the long journey of becoming.
If I could say anything to that young 20-something pretty, smart, intuitive girl, it would be, "You are enough. You were always enough."
I had an illegal abortion when I was 21 and spent the next 50 years worrying about how to keep it a secret. (Now I'm writing a book about it, so the secret-keeping part is over). By the time I was 25, I was married and living in Germany with my husband and our 1-year-old daughter. When I was 30 we moved back to the U.S. with three kids. So I spent my mid- to late-20s trying to learn German, navigate a foreign culture, and raise young children. We didn't have enough money for a car or a washing machine. I have a clear memory of packing my laundry and my kids into the stroller and the baby carrier and walking up a steep hill to the laundromat. I worried mainly about getting through each day without losing my mind.
I’m 23, (so not sure if this falls into your category of people) and I feel pressured to “be young” and “enjoy life”. Many people I meet who are in their 30s and 40s tell me that I have “youth as your advantage” and it gives me an excuse or justified reason to be reckless, try, and fail. It sometimes makes me feel pathetic to want to grow slowly and steadily (instead of dream big and busy), have one on one small coffee chats (instead of partying), and wanting to spend a few weeks with my grandma in the countryside (rather than traveling to new cities).
There’s a pressure to be lively and adventurous, as if this sparkle would fade with age, as if there’s a clock ticking above my head that everyone but me can see
Good topic, thanks. I remember having a very depressed 29th birthday. I'd realised I was never going to be remarkable and it stung. (I blush now at this arrogant and privileged youthful assumption.) Slowly, I made peace with just being me and ordinary. Looking back, I realise some remarkable things did occur for me. Hang in there, twenty-somethings.
Love this, Sari! I'm in my late 20's and feel the pressure to achieve my biggest career milestones before 30 (...?!). I don't consciously believe this to be true, but I feel that pressure lingering beneath the surface, somewhere in a dusty corner of my mind. Perhaps perpetuated by things like "Forbes 30 under 30" !! I call bullshit on all of it!
I got married at 22 and had a baby at 23, but by 28 hadn't published a book. I worked in a bookstore and just wanted a short paperback romance out there while I learned how to write a bigger novel. When an editor from Harlequin called me to buy my book, I said, "Oh my God, I was almost 30 before it happened!" I wrote three romances, lived a bunch of life, most of it surprising, and today, at almost 57, think I'm ready to write that bigger novel.
At 25, I was a self-obsessed mess and had zero self-respect. Was I thin enough? Would I ever find real and lasting love--and if I couldn't find real love, could I at least get laid now and then? Where's the party? Would I ever realize my creative ambitions? Oh, and dodging the collection agencies--good thing I had an answering machine and could screen calls (this was back in the 80s).
At 68, I am friends with my body, most days. I found (and kept) real and lasting love, am debt-free, and am realizing my creative ambitions. I have self-respect and adult life skills. A miracle!
I worried all the time (not necessarily a crisis, just an undiagnosed general anxiety disorder). Some of the top worries:
* was I right to go to grad school to study art history
* would I regret not wanting kids
* the state of the world
* was I going to get MS (my mom had it)
I’m now 55, worry much less and no more panic attacks thanks to therapy and meds. And I don’t regret not having kids and thankfully I did not get MS. I left grad school before finishing my PhD and didn’t get employment in art history, but I’m glad I did it
I have often thought about the quarter life crisis as being something very real and difficult. There is so much pressure to go to college or get a job and achieve and then by the time you’re 25 you’re like am I even using any of this? What is the point of any of this? Do I want to do this? It’s the time where you’ve had enough space away from either parents or general societal expectations or both deciding what is best for you. And then you’re in the space of “real life” and if you haven’t hit those markers, it can feel really scary when the world is telling you you should have.
When I was around 25, I worried about coming out to my conservative religious parents and whether I could be out of the closet in the workplace. At the time, the mid 1970s, I was a high school English teacher.
OK I'll bite. When I was 25 I was in what I thought was a serious relationship and I began to have a strong urge to have children. My boyfriend was one year younger and this basically frightened him off. After this relationship broke up, which was devastating for me, my bio clock went right back to sleep and I didn't seriously think about having children again until I was in my late thirties. Yes, I worked on my "career" (using my writing skills to earn a living -- in community journalism, educational writing and editing, copy editing -- while wanting to be a "real" writer). At 39, I had my first and only child after 10 years with my partner/husband. As one might expect, the next 19 years were spent raising that beautiful new person while continuing to earn a quotidian living and filling reams of journals and notebooks with "real" writing. Somewhere in there I became a psychotherapist, and I just finished that (for now) at age 65. I have no real regrets, but I do wonder how things might have turned out if I had decided to remain single at 25 and really concentrate on my life's dream of writing novels and creative nonfiction. I'm wondering right now if I have the get-up-and-go to pursue that dream at this stage of life.
I definitely had a quarter life crisis. When I was 26 I moved to NYC, just like I always wanted, and got a job in the entertainment industry, just like I always wanted. In some ways, they were the best four years of my life. According to the journals I kept, though, I was constantly afraid and anxious that it would all abruptly end. One wrong move - a layoff, our sublet being sold, you name it - and the whole house of cards would collapse and I’d end up back at my mom’s house in suburban NJ. I was a worrier in general, and I remember what a drain it was. Now I’m 57 and feel much more secure in every way - mentally, emotionally, career-wise. I guess the u-curve really applies.
I worried about finding someone to fall in love with and being loved back, paying my bills, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, being thin, getting over depression, whether or not I should have kids. Now I just worry about paying my bills, and even that, not as much, not because I have money, but because I have more faith that everything will be okay, as I've been shown time and time again. And no, never had kids, and I'm good with that.
In my 20’s I was obsessed I might be missing events, people, movies, concerts, art exhibitions, trips, even jobs: FOMO controlled my life. It is such a relief that now in my early 50’s things have changed.