Welcome to Your Quarter-Life Cue: The Death of Who You Thought You Were
Class of 2014, our ten year reunion on my mind, I feel like I’m ascending Little Cottonwood Canyon to escape the inversion. Years of drowning in the haze makes the fresh mountain air feel incredible. Ten years out, and just getting to the surface now.
We come from great advantages regarding food, housing, and family. This allowed us to graduate high school, dreams in hand or just out of grasp, with every intention of living happily ever after. Many of us have done what we set out to do: graduate college, get a job, get married, buy a house, and start a family. We’ve all struggled through a rocky political climate, a worldwide pandemic, and our initial shock at giving the hard world our first solo flight. After the privilege of getting through our life’s itinerary, we often find ourselves in what I’d call, not a mid-life crisis, but a quarter-life cue. Your late twenties bring you to the most terrifying news of all – the death of who you thought you were.
It’s a grief we weren’t warned of. Some of us are shaking our heads and uttering “After all of this time, I thought I knew myself better than this.” Self-proclaimed perfectionists. Good Girls. Traditional girls. Straight girls. Horse girls. String instrument girls. These labels fall flat as we discover new dimensions of ourselves that we’re not sure we want to exist. Today we honor our past selves, for their ancestral-like passing of genes through centuries of vast change. The women I’m surrounded with have only reminded me that I’m not alone in this grief. We recognize that once in a while, it’s ok to take a moment of silence, to honor who we thought we were.
It’s being diagnosed with ADHD at 29.
It’s dating again after a five-year marriage to find your taste in men has changed.
It’s realizing you’re bisexual at the ripe age of 31.
It’s leaving the religion you were raised in.
It’s pursuing your master’s that has nothing to do with your undergraduate degree.
It’s your fifth job in five years, still ending in burnout.
It’s starting to rock climb after spending your entire girlhood terrified of gym class.
It’s having Taco Bell for the first time since you were a child and having to limit yourself to once a week now.
It’s realizing you feel more yourself with short hair.
It’s recognizing your music taste from junior high for its genius.
It’s hearing your shockingly loud voice in a group setting for the first time that you feel 100% comfortable.
It’s working in accounting after years of planning on being a stay-at-home mom.
It’s a struggle with chronic illness the year you dreamed of starting a family.
It’s honoring that Halloween has replaced Christmas as your favorite holiday.
It’s atheism after a lifetime of Christianity.
It’s a depression diagnosis when you spent your life believing you were just “not a morning person.”
When expectations are challenged, we often fall for the lie, that others must have it all figured out, while we’re stuck asking why we’re not who we thought we’d be. Maybe it’s simply part of growing older, or maybe it’s only relatable to women like me who’ve experienced vast change. Either way, may you know that you’re not alone. We’re all asking ourselves: did other people do this earlier in life? Perhaps, but you’re only at your quarter-life cue. The death of who you thought you were is the birth of who you are. May we follow our cue towards healing, growth, and self-empowerment, onto the highest peaks of our lives.
