What this is all about...

A quarter life crisis is a real thing. I know this because myself, and my best girlfriends, are going through it right now. This blog is dedicated to the day to day banalities/craziness of those quarter life crises. For those of you with questions, the qlc is when you realize that you have to be Responsible. It is when the job you accept is the beginning of a Career Path. It is when the guy/girl you date might be The One. It is when you get pushed out of the nest and you have to flap your wings enough to cushion the fall. Perhaps your thirties are when you get to fly?
The question isn't who is going to let me; 
it's who is going to stop me.
-Ayn Rand

Friday, October 29, 2010

There Are No Calories In Cookies When You Are Sad

For better or worse, I am the type of person who makes quick decisions, gets ridiculously excited about them, then crashes hard when a wrench is thrown in the plan. I make my decisions, and then work out the details instead of the other way around. Sometimes this doesn’t work out so well and I find myself slipping into a depression coma brought on by a lost future, white wine, and lots of chocolate chip cookies.

I have always gotten lost in daydreams. I’m the friend who has to be talked back from the ledge after breakups because at some point after the third date I’ve decided he is perfect and we could get married. As most girls know, there is always that period between the third date and six months where life is wonderful – usually due to the fact that no one is showing their true colors and you haven’t met each others families. Then one day you find yourself as a date to a nightmare wedding or watching your boyfriend play video games for two hours. That day plants the seed of doubt in your lovesick brain. As we get older and relationships become more serious, it becomes easier to tune out that voice in your head (or the voices from your best girlfriends) that say, “He is not the right guy for you.” Wonderful families, expensive Christmas presents, and the memory of the time he brought you flowers when your childhood pet died usually help keep the internal earmuffs on. So does the horrifying realization that you have spent X amount of time with the guy and you don’t want to give all that up.

Edie, my funny British friend, once equated long relationships with waiting in line to see Michelangelo’s David. She enthusiastically joins the line, excited to see the famous sculpture. An hour into the wait she starts to question if it really worth it, her reasoning being that she is not an art major and she is getting kind of hungry. Two hours into it, strangers begin to argue about the line and she is hungrier. Three hours in and people are in full blown Line Rage, looking accusingly at anyone not in their group and picking fights with neighbors. Now she thinks her stomach is going to digest itself. But at this point she has waited three whole hours, time she will never get back, and she doesn’t want to quit. Four hours passes and she is still waiting. This is her breaking point - time to cut her losses and find some food. She’ll come back another day.

It is always hard to lose the future you planned, even when you didn’t know you were planning it. It doesn’t matter if you imagined yourself spending the afternoon with famous sculptures or the rest of your life with your high school boyfriend, when something falls apart you realize you need a New Plan. I find that it is easier to develop the New Plan with the assistance of alcohol and sweets. Yesterday it was wine and cookies. Some days it is a beer and gelato. I have a friend who dislikes sweets so she has a margarita with chips and salsa. You don’t always need booze either – one friend gave up drinking for Lent so she would drink tea with cookies. Whatever it is that gets you to your Happy Place.

My Old Plan was to move to Italy and get a visa to stay over the usual 90 days. Yesterday that dream dissolved and I was back to square one. I poured myself some wine, ate some chocolate chip cookies and started to brainstorm the New Plan. Where to live? What type of job to work? Why am I always asking myself the same questions?!?!?!

As I reached for my 5th cookie (homemade so I couldn’t read a calorie count) I remembered that Paige once told me there are no calories in cookies when you are sad. Now those are words to live by.

2 comments:

  1. Kerry, this is a great post. I've been reading your blog but often not commenting for some reason. Anyway, I'm with you. Right now, I'm going through all of the things-the questions you mentioned above and it's overwhelming, to say the very least. I cried, hard, last night. I drank a lot of whiskey and bourbon. And now, reading this makes me realize I am not alone. We are in this together. xoxo,
    shay

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  2. Kerry, I don't know if I can count this post as my fulfillment of the weekly challenge of reconnecting with an old friend, but I have really been enjoying your blog. I find it really comforting to learn that many of my peers are also struggling to put together life plans and dealing with the sequelae when the plans don't go according to plan. Thanks!

    Lily

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