Can You Have A Quarter-Life Crisis?

that’s what this feels like. in my head, at least. maybe it’s just hormones, but for the last week i keep thinking about how i turn 25 this year. in 5 months, actually. the vast majority of my friends are older than me, and it doesn’t at all sound old saying they’re 28 or 29 or 30 or even 35. but when i think about ME turning 25, it sounds so weird.

not that i haven’t done a lot of the things i figured i would do by the time i got to this age. it’s just weird how strangely normal it feels. which is not at all what i expected.

college still feels like it could’ve been 2 months ago, not 2 years ago. spring break in 2009 feels like a drunken memory from a few weeks ago. i’ve been at my SECOND big-girl job for almost 9 months now. where did the time go?

i bought a truck last year. actually, i didn’t plan on doing that until it really needed to happen. and i really didn’t want to. and as it turned out, when it really needed to happen came way too quickly. my dad bought me my little saturn for my birthday after i graduated high school in 2004, and i drove that thing for all it was worth. since fixing it would cost as much as the trade-in value, i drove to the dealership the next day and bought a new truck.

and on the drive home i was like, WHITNEY, you bought a freaking truck. by yourself. well, actually brett came with me. salesmen like to throw women for a loop. but i did it with my money. MY money. my savings. my credit score. if you knew me, or if you’re my dad, you know how the word savings never actually existed in my vocabulary until around… a year ago. but i did it on my own, and i didn’t go completely broke doing it, and it felt NORMAL. like this is what i should be doing at 24 years old.

a few days later, the excitement finally seeped in and i started to think, wow, i really did do it. but it didn’t hit me like i thought it would. you know, the biggest purchase of my life up until now. i should be so much more stoked about it. and then the down payment cleared and the excitement was cut short very quickly.

i did my taxes this weekend and turbotax asked me if i’d done any rollovers on my 401K. dude. a year ago i didn’t even know what a rollover was. i had to do one when i switched jobs, so right away i was like, OH YEA i did a rollover! what the hell?

i still feel like a kid. i still look like a kid. i can’t really deny that. i’m pretty sure the only thing that could possibly make anyone think otherwise might be chest size, but if you throw me in a hoodie and blue jeans, i really do look freaking 15. and i guess the sum of those 2 circumstances is why most of the time i still act like a kid. case in point, when my “i