Dear Mother Phawker:
Is it strange that at age 22 I feel like an old fuckin’ hag
who’s too loose to hang? I know all you really old people
tell me that I’m still young and whatever, but being
in college for four years only to come out directionless and
uninspired really makes a person feel used up and pointless.
Not to mention, VH1 is already running an “I Love the ’90s”
series, recent parties have been annoyingly pervaded by ditzy,
younger girls with higher metabolisms, and I get tired if I
don’t get a full seven hours’ sleep. All of which are things
that make me feel uncool.
And from here on out, it only gets worse. That’s where the real problem lies. It’s scary knowing
that the remaining 3/4 of my life is really just the beginning
of a morbid, depressing and embarrassing downward spiral.
Because let’s be honest here — nobody really enjoys growing
older. And I’m at the point in my life where my remaining
youth is going to disappear just as fast as it came. So Ma,
what’s a girl in a quarter-life crisis to do?
Sign me,
The Old Lady at the Club
Dear Wrinkled Old Crone,
Ahh, youth! Mother remembers it well — the days of viewing the world through a cloud of Parliament smoke, the breasts that still look straight ahead, the ability to look at a shrug and striped leggings and say “YES, dammit! That’s the look for me!”
Well, it’s over, sister. Welcome to middle age. Relax, I’m kidding. Mother Phawker would never be that annoying older woman, the one who rolls her eyes, pats you on the shoulder condescendingly and makes some witty remark about how I have Pap smears older than you. But honestly? You couldn’t pay me to be 22 again.
Oh poopie, what you need to remember is that feeling “grown up,” like an adult, is not the same as feeling (or being) old. In my own experience, the much-fabled quarter-life crisis is actually a mourning period for the loss of adolescence. You’re noticing the younger, more annoying chicks at parties because a.) you’re finally old enough that there are actually girls younger than you around and b.) they’re in your space, competing for your attention, possibly picking up the boys (or girls) that should be for you.
On the other hand, they’re still young enough that they haven’t yet made most of the dumbass mistakes that young women make — the inappropriate hookups, the bad financial decisions, the Sheryl Crow albums. So you have, and will always have, the advantage of a few more years’ life experience, whereas they’re just dumb young sluts. Feel better?
Bitch-slappingly,
Mother Phawker