You're Not Lazy, You're Lost

It has come to my realization that I am experiencing a mid-life crisis. I know most people who will read this may roll their eyes and mutter to themselves “join the club”, but this is real. It scares me to my core because I am only 36 going on 37 years old and yet when I wake up in the morning and move through the world, I still see myself through the lens of a 25-year-old who is just trying to make it. That ladies and gentlemen is the problem; I’m a grown ass woman who is in her mid-thirties and I still see the 25 year old version of myself who is struggling to make it. Ever since I graduated from college and joined the real world with the rest of the adults, I feel like I never really morphed into one. An adult that is. I find myself drowning in my on struggles of trying to move through this chaotic life all while giving the perception of “I’m fine, everything is fine”. I mean I did the adult things, I moved out of my parents home, I got married, I even had a child. Yet something in my life still felt as if it were missing. Like I didn’t feel like I had this grown-up life on lock. The other day while sitting on my couch enjoying a random Saturday afternoon, I saw a meme appear in my social media algorithm. It made me damn near cry because the accuracy was spot on. It read along the lines of “You ever find yourself in a situation where you need to look for an adult? Like someone who is more adult than you?” The way I screamed into my phone I thought I was being followed. But back to the issue at hand. My mid-life crisis is not the classic retreat to my youthful self like the generation before me. But rather my need to become the generation before me. Although I find overall that my life is alright in comparison to other young people my age, I secretly craved to become this boring old person who didn’t need to worry about where the next check was coming from. I wanted to become the old person who could just clock into work, do her job, clock out of work, and live my personal life in comfort knowing that it is not all on the line. Everyday I wake up nearly having a panic attack because I cannot understand how is it that I live this life where at any given moment the rug could be pulled from under my feet.

I can attest that millennials have been through a lot. We’ve survived economic pitfalls, numerous natural disasters that had direct impact to our bottom-line, housing markets being unstable to the point where we all live communal just to maintain independence and a global pandemic. We’re exhausted and many feel run down. I’m tired of walking on eggshells wondering what’s next? My stomach churns when I watch the news, I barely look at any of my financial apps worried that I live through another market crash. This world we live in is slowly driving us crazy. But as the world turns such is life. I often tell many baby boomers who feel the need to give the good ole by the bootstrap’s advice that your day is NOT my day. Plain. Simple. Period. We are living in two totally different worlds, so to give such advice is so irritating and very condescending. We’re not lazy, but we are lost. Everything we were taught about the world, and it works is not working. It’s like taking a major exam but you’ve been studying from old course material that is no longer relevant. I don’t know what we’re doing or where we’re going with this, but at this point all I can say is that we need to keep going. The greatest quality our generation has is the ability to be adaptable. We’ve made paths out of dirt roads and with that we’ve created new ways out of nothing. So to millennials who like me are out there with the feeling of being lost and still struggling to make it, just remember that you’ve made it this far. You are not lazy, you are not as lost as you think, and most importantly you are not alone. Somewhere out there, I hope you feel a sense of validation and encouragement to keep going.