no longer lost...but still wallowing in a quarter life crisis.

so today i boldly decided to stop surrendering my life to lost. my life is no longer lost. hopefully that sentence will take on multiple meanings as the days go by. i read the episode summaries of season three and four. halfway through the summaries of season four, i decided that i just dont care anymore. its getting ridiculously fanciful and seems to have dragged on two seasons too long. thats just my opinion.

i started reading an awesome book--valley of the dolls! its so much fun. not exactly mind expanding, but its a start to remind myself that i am, in fact, capable of reading books. hopefully, it will distract me from the fact that i am completely unfulfilled by my work and have very little direction--except towards an airport, come june.

im planning on going to australia and (back to) new zealand to start my yoga training. i will pray for abundance and it will manifest. ("the secret" style) its either in australia...or cleveland. i greatly prefer australia. much more exciting, and only slightly more expensive. the yoga tradition that i want to teach is called "satyananda yoga"--or the bihar school of yoga. to me, it is yoga perfection. the real deal. so, i will pursue my yoga education at a satyananda ashram.

when i come back from oz and nz, i suspect i will settle in LA for a few months...maybe work for Greenpeace and do some street begging on rodeo drive...my friend is starting a yoga program for women in prison, so i am hoping to help her do some fundraising...i will be taking the gres before i leave the country, so when i return, i can easily and effortlessly apply to grad school....

that is, if meaningful work doesnt turn up somewhere else. i am in no hurry for grad school--in fact, i view it as a last resort. i definitely see higher education in my future. however, i am currently completely debt free (save for my 100 dollar credit card bill)...and quite comfortable remaining this way.

currently, i am in an uncomfortable state of limbo. im just sitting around, waiting for june...and making very little money in the waiting process. luckily, i require very little money. also quite lucky that i have an emergency cushion in my savings account...not too much. just about a grand. but a grand is a lot when youre debt free. anyway, im in limbo. sometimes i feel as though my entire existence since graduating college has been a state of limbo.

a bit depressing, but what are the twenties really??? i know very few people right now who are happy with their jobs or their relationships. let alone their jobs and their relationships. its remarkable to recall that when i was 19 i thought i had it all figured out. somehow i never thought id "grow up." i never thought escaping the american education system would be so disorienting and unsatisfying. youd think id be relatively clued in after taking courses like "life leisure and the meaning of happiness." my senior seminar--the philosophy of work. i was a philosophy major for crying out loud!!! didnt i see this whole "human condition" thing coming???!! i wrote my thesis on existentialism!!!

how did i not see this mid twenties crisis approaching?? how did i naively think that i would just casually circumnavigate the oppressingly crushing confusion that settles over twenty-somethings like one of winnie the pooh's little black storm clouds?!?!

at any rate, the quarter life crisis is here. the psychological burden that so many of us middle/upper middle-class-well-educated-suburbanites must suffer as penance for our privilege.

i dont wear it well at all. some people flourish when they are angsty or feeling unproductive. not me--i wallow. i bitch and moan to anyone who will listen and say annoying things like, "i just dont know what im doing with my life" and "im so good at so many things. i just wish someone would recognize my amazingness and give me a meaningful job."

side note--is that really what this dissatisfaction comes down to? the lack of meaningful work? am i that americanized that i am so obsessed with my ability to become a productive member of society? pathetic.

anyway-im hoping i can cut back on my wallowing. im trying to cut myself a little slack. in my opinion, i just became an adult a year ago. im adjusting. last february, i moved out of my mom's house and moved in with a man friend. i went to india last november desperately searching for a way to cut the umbilical cord, so to speak. i was incredibly attached to my mother, so much so that i prayed that she wouldnt have the guts to move out of the country, back to her beloved france. (she hasnt moved yet, for the record.) i just didnt want things to change. part of me just wanted her to continue to take care of me forever and ever. in india, i realized that i needed to break free. i didnt know how, but i mentally knew that i had to release her from my bondage and release myself from hers.

within a week of coming back to the states, i met a boy at a bar. within two months, we moved in together. i moved out of my mom's house across the bridge to philadelphia. this was the transition that marked my entry into THE LAND OF THE ADULTS....dun dun dun! the boy went away on business for seven months, so i stayed in his house as a "tenant," so to speak. and yes, i paid rent. not utilities, but rent. it was a gradual transition to the land of the adults.

now i have moved out of the boy's house and for the past four months, i have been a real adult. paying utilities. and the strange desire to learn about home repairs. anyway, im trying to cut myself a little slack on the wallowing...i just have to be careful not to cut myself too much slack or ill turn into a loser. YIKES!