Reading The Tea

Ok, those of you who are older may now laugh that I find 25 momentous. No, go ahead, get it out of the way. Finished? Ok, good.

So, as I was saying… a quarter century… That used to seem so old. Really, truly, properly adult. I think that right up until this year, I’ve been waiting to feel like a grown-up. Now I think that I’m going to throw in the towel. A few weeks ago, while pulling out stray eyebrow hairs, I got a close-up of my eyes in the mirror. And there, at the quarter of the left eye, was an unmistakable, honest-to-goodness wrinkle. Yes, a crowsfoot. I have a job, a 5-year relationship, a (quasi) grown-up apartment, and a crowsfoot, but still don’t have that warm fuzzy feeling of all-knowing. And at 25 I have much less of an idea what I’m going to do with my next 5 years than I did at 20. At 20, I pretty much had everything all figured out. Of course, I’ve revised my plan umpteen million times since then, but each time I’ve been confident with my new and shiny life plan. Now… well, now that I’m about to be in my mid-twenties… I really don’t know. I still come up with plans. (Lots of ‘em.) But I can’t quite shake an awareness that life might digress from them. Maybe that’s what it means to be a grown-up? (Cue nauseatingly sweet realization music, swelling.)
Keep an eye out for upcoming reviews of anti-aging creams.

“Hey, nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too.”
“So, what do you do?”

Why do we always ask that? It seems like we define ourselves by what we do. And by “what we do” we mean our careers.

“I read. I take walks. I pet my cats.”

Those would all be really weird answers to that question. But why? How did we go about the friend-making ritual before adulthood?

All through college I defined myself by what I studied — “I’m a developmental psychologist. A musician. A dancer.” Then I moved here and got a “real” job. A job I never intended to have. I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t enter into who I think that I am. The problem with that is, I spend a great deal of my time doing it. And it acts as a lens through which people see me in that first “What do you do?” (”Who are you?”) moment. Are our jobs really who we are?

This blog has been sitting silent as I try to craft just the right angle, focus and breadth. Personal? Detached? Art only? Reviews? Lacking a good master plan, maybe I’ll just start.

I’m itching again against my complacency.