Archive

It’s a Whole New World. Just not Disney-Aladdin-style.

posted 16th July 2009    Written by: Marisa    CATEGORY: All Posts, Marisa, Money, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 1

INTRODUCING MARISA

Self-realization is key.

I ignored self-realization last year despite knowing that I was unhappy with my career because it was just easier to stay with the comfort of a steady paycheck and not change.  I think fate changed it for me instead.

This past March I was “let go” from my job. It wasn’t really shocking or unexpected; I did the numbers and knew that despite company cutbacks my position was probably next and it was.

I decided to enjoy myself with this sudden free time.  I slept late, did absolutely nothing for days on end and lounged like I had never lounged in my life.  And after waking up very late one day, I looked at myself.  I was one lazy hot mess of nothing.  I had friends, great people who were happy with their lives who were not like this! I became instantly jealous.  It was time to change.

But it’s hard work.

Insecurity plagues everything and hides around every corner.  I was stuck somewhere in between the excitement of being able to do anything I’ve ever wanted and the depressing nature that I just lost my job and I was alone.

I had a choice to make.  Was I bound to be that horribly depressing creature on my couch or was I to get going and make plans that challenged me intellectually, physically and even emotionally?

I chose to do something that I’ve always dreamed of doing.  I booked a flight to Austin for SXSW.  If you don’t know SXSW, it’s an indie-rock fangirl’s dream.  I decided that visiting SXSW was going to be the beginning of my new life.  It was time. So I flew to Austin, had some of the best times of my life along with meeting some amazing people, and came back to Portland.  I also booked my first drum lesson.  And guess what, this girl has some skillz (that’s what my teacher says, I’m only quoting).

So, the question here: Am I happy? It’s the beginning of a beautiful summer here in Portland.  There’s new life, new friends and new experiences.  I am happy.  I’m happy enough at the moment we’ll say. However, I struggle with the pursuit of finding a new job.  I struggle with finding a balance of the positive and the negative.

Things are not going to be happy go-lucky all the time.  I recognize that, I even respect that, because true life is never without the crap and the bullshit that this world throws at us.  I get it.

But I’ve started something too big to ignore, too big for complacency.  I can have those crap days, but they’re not going to keep me down.  It’s begun, this journey. It’s going to be never ending, I know that now. The person I am today is not the same person I was three months ago.

Well, I’m still the same crazy cranberry, indie-rock, fabric loving girl… I just smile A LOT more.

divider

I am not a Grown Up

posted 15th July 2009    Written by: Andrea    CATEGORY: All Posts, Andrea, Love/Relationships, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 1

INTRODUCING ANDREA

A New Chapter of my Life: “The Quarterlife Crisis.”

If you ask any little girl what they want to do when they grow up, chances are they will say something along the lines of, “ I want to be a ballerina!”

I know I did!

If you were to ask me how old I would be when I was finally a Grown Up, I would have said twenty-five.

News flash, I turned 25 on the 4th of July of this year.

I am not a Grown Up.

My name is Andrea Genevieve and I live with my 2 best friends in a row house in Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Contrary to popular belief, we do not work in the political arena. In fact, we don’t ever really talk politics; we talk more about boys and nail polish. We live there because we have a nice large kitchen, actual grass and an awesome porch. It’s become our own little home.

Living in DC is pretty exciting and there is always some event we are rushing around to attend.  I do have days where I hate my job, my boss, the current “beau” situation and just plain hate life. Other days I am totally enthralled and grateful to be living in a city with such opportunity.  To combat this rage, my roommates and I look to bottles of vino, Netflix, some good music to sing to and each other. I don’t know what I would do without these other Non-Grown-Up girls.

Three things you should know about me:

  1. I’m a writer
  2. I am up to my armpits in student loan debt, but I spend money I don’t have on clothes, food and drinks.
  3. I have no idea what I am doing with my life.

Two years ago, I finished graduate school and moved to DC to live my dream. Only problem was, I had no idea what that was, or how long it would take me to find it.

When I first moved here, I thought it would only be temporary until I moved in with a boy and settled down. Within 9 months it hit me like a proverbial bus that this was NOT going to be my plan. I realized I craved adventure, excitement, chaos and crowds; I had become a city girl.

As a city girl, my life started to become one big disaster after another. Yet, these disasters always taught me something and led me one step closer to finding my place and purpose in the world. One time, I actually thought I cooked my blackberry in the pot roast during a dinner party. From this I learned to plan accordingly, ask for help and keep electronics out of the kitchen!  Honestly, I could not write this stuff! (This is a token phrase in our household.)

When I saw the opportunity to write for this blog, I thought to myself, “Maybe I should be writing this stuff!”

I’m sure there are many of you suffering through the same daily dramas I do and struggling to answer questions about social timelines, life goals, marriage, babies, friendships, financial problems, finding true meaning to life and discovering ultimate happiness. You want to get tattoos, (I got my first one on June 4th!) travel the world, fall in love with a white knight and document the entire story with pictures, video and words.

My life has always been measured in words and this is my chance to share, comment, converse and continue writing those words with a new chapter I call, “The Quarterlife Crisis.”

Andrea (new) bio.

divider

Setting Up a Home, Establishing a Life

posted 14th July 2009    Written by: Kendra    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kendra, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 1

INTRODUCING KENDRA

Cresting the Quarterlife Crisis Wave…

Almost five years ago, I hit my Quarterlife Crisis at 25. Two and a half years out of undergrad, I was living in Brooklyn and working in corporate communications. I hated my job, which was neither intellectually challenging nor emotionally fulfilling, and I hated my social life, which revolved around drinking and eating out; a sedated form of Sex and the City.

Over and over again this line from Anne Taylor’s Back When We Were Grownups would play in my head: “Once upon a time there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.”

I knew if I didn’t do something that woman would be me.

So I quit my job and moved to France where I spent seven months teaching English. When I returned to New York in the spring of 2006, I knew that it wouldn’t be for long. And it wasn’t.

In the fall of 2007 I moved north to a tiny grad school in Brattleboro, Vermont (population, 12,000), settling into a cabin located on 40 acres of forest in the town of Guilford (population 1,900). I was 8 miles from town, 13 miles from school, with neither a car nor a driver’s license (yes, I’m a total New Yorker). My two new roommates assured me that it would work out. It did. I eventually learned how to drive, how to stoke a woodstove, and how to be unafraid of the woodland creatures with which we shared our land.

After Vermont, I moved to DC and from DC to Montreal, which is where I’m currently living.

Personally, I’d say that the first wave of my Quarterlife Crisis came with the realization that the life I’d established for myself was not the one that I wanted, and that I needed to find a way to define myself outside of the confines of social and parental pressure. So I quit that life and spent my time trying new things. I embraced failure, I gave myself permission to walk away from things.  In the process, I figured out who I was and I gained a certain unflappable confidence that I don’t think I would have had otherwise.

Three months ago, however, I began to realize that I missed having friendships that weren’t held together by Skype, that I longed for neighbors who knew me by name, and for a room that was filled with more than can be crammed into a suitcase.

In effect I realized that it I was ready to sink in some roots, to set up a home. The realization feels scarier then when I first quit my job almost five years ago.

We talk a lot about surviving the pain and anguish of the Quarterlife Crisis, but we don’t talk a lot about how to end it. So I guess that’s what I’m here for; my crisis hasn’t ended but it has begun to wane. In a mere month and a half I’m moving back to New York for at least two years. It will be the longest that I’ve lived anywhere since 2005. And I’m nervous – I can move better than almost anyone; but do I know how to establish a life?

Am I really going to do this?

kendra-bio1

divider

Craving Something… Anything… Meaningful

posted 13th July 2009    Written by: Robyn    CATEGORY: All Posts, Quarterlife Crisis, Robyn, Season 1

INTRODUCING ROBYN

This is how I got to where I am…

robyn-post-1

Come along for the rest of the ride!

Being a natural-born planner and a self-defined overachiever, I believe my Quarterlife Crisis began early—at age 22.  I had graduated college with a journalism degree and a women’s studies degree (don’t ask me what I planned on doing with this, because I have no answer).  I immediately packed up my bedroom at my parents’ house and moved to downtown Chicago, living right in the heart of Lakeview in a gorgeous Victorian 3-flat.

I interviewed relentlessly, and I landed a job as a supply-chain-something-or-other at Kellogg Company.  I began the job with a shining attitude—I arrived early, I dressed up, I left late, I conversed with my coworkers. I had a dreadful one hour commute to and from work everyday (think opening traffic jam scene of Office Space) that eventually weighed on me by day #6.

My lack of stimulating work also started weighing on me. I spent most of my time zoning out in front of excel sheets and taking long lunch breaks—sometimes to my car where I could nap in my backseat (sad, pathetic…funny looking back at it).

Being unchallenged and unmotivated, I questioned whether this is what my work life would be like…and if it was…damn…I needed more time to have fun before settling down with this.

After three months, I realized all my planning and over-achieving had gotten me nowhere.  I quit my job, dropped my lease in Chicago and bought a flight to Sydney, Australia. I backpacked up the East Coast of Australia.  I did things I never thought I’d do: learned to surf, kayaked with dolphins, sailed the wide open ocean, snorkeled with jelly fish (eek!), camped on a deserted island, went white water rafting, and of course, made friends with kangaroos and koalas.

I was on a roll!  I couldn’t get enough, so I went over to New Zealand to go black water rafting through caves, hike on glaciers, and chicken out on bungee jumping.

I returned to Chicago three months later, completely revived with fresh ideas.  I felt like a new person–less concerned with structure and planning and more concerned with just “seeing what happens” and “going with the flow.” Slowly, I fell back into the pattern that society demands…I began the job hunt again–this time believing I knew more about what i was looking for, but found that all I could think about was how huge the world was and how little I had seen.

I was now stuck with a travel bug that would haunt me during my next job.

I received an offer to work at a marketing firm downtown with a salary bigger than I ever imagined starting with.  I immediately decided I would love the job and decided to buy a condo and settle down in Chicago, subconsciously knowing I needed an anchor to keep me still.

Whenever I daydreamed about exploring the world, I pushed it to the back of my mind and told myself, “Now you are working for a global company.  If you put in your time now…I bet you can work anywhere in the world!”  Some how I managed to lie to myself and make myself believe—there’s talent!

This brings me to my current point in life.

I am now working a job that takes up the majority of my time and manages to leave me unfulfilled and unchallenged no matter what kind of work I request.  I crave something—anything meaningful.  I crave a challenge, and most of all, (If this is what the corporate world is like) I crave calling my own shots and not answering to “the man.” I am on the verge of quitting my job, trying to sell my condo, possibly going back to school, and possibly starting my own business.

I expect hiccups along the way, but I’m up for the challenge—obviously!

robyn-bio1

divider

Who the heck is blogging at Stratejoy?

posted 7th July 2009    Written by: Molly Mahar    CATEGORY: All Posts, Molly, Quarterlife Crisis, Stratejoy the Biz

I bet you know the answer to this question!  Who is blogging at Stratejoy?  It’s you, Molly Hoyne, it’s you!  And you’d be right for now.

But we’ve got an exciting new adventure upon us.  I’m thrilled to introduce you to 4 amazing women — Robyn, Kendra, Andrea & Marisa — who will be blogging about their Quarterlife Crisis in real time.  They are allowing us to be part of their journey as they tackle unemployment, big moves, soul sucking jobs, relationships, finding joy, staying true & all the other wild experiences that go along with being a quarter lifer.

Robyn, Chicago, Quarterlife Crisis seeking Happiness

Kendra, Montreal, Quarterlife Crisis seeking Happiness

Andrea's Bio,jpg

Marisa, Portland, Quarterlife Crisis Seeking Happiness

Today’s quarter lifers (20 & early 30somethings) grew up with the promise we could be anything we wanted to be and if we worked hard enough, have it “all”.  Sounds incredibly exciting, right?

Unfortunately, many of us feel disappointed, lost or disconnected when the real world kicks in because we had internalized those expectations. When the safety of school is over/glamor of our first job ends/serious relationship breaks up, we feel a sense of crisis because we definitely don’t have it “all”.

And we don’t have a clue what to do about it…

These woman are gutsy.  I give huge props to these 4 honest, clever, down-to-earth gals.  They’re helping spread the word that the Quarterlife Crisis happens to the best of us and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that fact.  They’re helping challenge the stigma that this “crisis” is considered a failure and that somehow we could have avoided it, if only we had everything figured out.

Those of us who have experienced/are experiencing a QLC haven’t failed.  We are not selfish Gen Yers wallowing in some perceived notion that life should be handed to us on golden platter.  We’re not blaming our parents & our education for encouraging us to go after it all.

We’re simply admitting we don’t have it “figured out” at a time in our lives when we thought we would.

We are courageous enough to admit that the life we wake up to every morning isn’t actually the one we want.  We are ballsy enough to take stock of our life & seek clarity about how we really want to show up in the world.  We are gutsy enough to take control of our happiness.

And as long as you don’t allow your Quarterlife Criris to take you down and out, you will be all the stronger, healthier & happier for it.  It will force you to really think about your life, to challenge expectations & to carve out your own definition of success. These 4 women — Robyn, Kendra, Andrea & Marisa– are living proof of that.  So who are these mysterious characters?  You’ll get to know them soon enough!

The first post will be going live on Monday, July 13 and the schedule will look like this:

Monday- Robyn
Tuesday-Kendra
Wednesday-Andrea
Thursday-Marisa

Of course, I’ll still be blogging!  I’ll be sharing my own experience, as well as the strategies for joy, inspiration & hip happenings whenever it strikes my fancy, but most definitely on Fridays.

And I will definitely be chiming in on the comments of the QLC post’s- so join the discussion!

divider

« Previous Page