Who Says You Can't Go Home?

Despite having the appearance of a generally enjoyable life (steady job, steady boyfriend, steady apartment), I find myself unable to sleep at least three times a week, often clutching Snuffles, my childhood stuffed animal, freaking out about the timeless question "What am I doing with my life?"

In a ongoing email chain I have with girlfriends from college, our updates are peppered with musings about a general lack of satisfaction in our lives, whether it is because of jobs, relationships, social life or anything else. As a potential solution, we've all admitted to wanting to move back home, at least for a little while.

Actually, I know very few people who are truly happy with their post-college lives. But, as much as I want to conveniently use the term "quarterlife crisis," it's not what's going on. There is no crisis. Being well-educated but confused is hardly the end of the world: we have no kids, we have no mortgages and chances are, our childhood beds in our parents' house still have clean sheets on them, just in case. And, perhaps for good reason.

Since graduating from college nearly two years ago, I speak to my parents on a more-regular basis, typically to seek advice about how to be a functioning adult. I call them about everything, whether it is for serious insight about my job or knowing what humidifier to buy. My friends have all somehow re-attached themselves to their parents as well, ranging from talking to their mothers three times a day, or going home way more often than we ever thought to in college.

We don't know what rock bottom feels like, yet somehow we're convinced that we're never going to find the perfect anything.

It's Puberty 2.0 (version 1.0 didn't include alcohol): mood swings, angst and life-is-so-unfair sentiments. In this version though, we don't have our parents to lash out against, so instead a lot of us are begging for their help.

We went through our teens thinking that our parents just didn't understand--they were sooooo unfair and ohmygod did my dad really just ring the doorbell at my friend's house? I told him to wait in the car!!

As I got ready for college, I was thrilled that I would no longer be living in the boring suburbs, because I could finally prove how independent I truly was (ha--now I can't even purchase blinds without asking my mom). Our imagined success is always greater than the success we actually achieve, especially right after college. Thus, there is a second acclimation process going on now, where the notion of being able to do anything and be anyone--something that we have been told since day 0--is being challenged.

I'm shocked about how many people I know who are seriously considering going back home, and not just for financial reasons. We miss the invisible shield of our parents' home, whether it was the simple comfort of a regular dinner time or the quiet hum of a laundry machine. We aren't as mature as we thought we were; we're just a bunch of grown-up children looking for someone to tell us that everything is going to be okay.

Just as our acne and pit stains subsided and our braces were removed, this too will pass (or so I'm told). But, until it does, we'll be searching for a lot of answers about the rest of our lives and the only way to find them seems to be reverting back to the past, even though what we probably need is actual progress into the future. So, mom, if you see me on your doorstep soon, please welcome me back and make sure my bed is made. Don't worry, I brought Snuffles with me.

Comments

[VCgradinDC]

Hmm this sounds like me. I just graduated from a fancy liberal arts college. I now have a fancy DC job. I have the cutest place in the city. I go out all the time. I already have a huge network of friends here. Yet, for the past several months I have been incessantly complaining. I, like your friend, have been calling my mother at least twice daily. I ask her questions in order to reassure myself that I am indeed a competent adult. The subject is usually about my love life which is a comedy of errors to put it mildly.

If it is any consolation, it's getting better. The more confidence that I gain in myself, the easier it is to let myself be happy. I'm an overachiever who must find self worth without a glowing report card and academic honors. Also, as a woman living alone, I am navigating a not-so-safe city without the protection of my father or a gated college campus. I have a lot to pat myself on the back about! Whenever I start to panic about not having "a perfect life", I start to think about all of the things that make me awesome and so blessed. It helps...I'm also getting a cat and signing up for a pretty intense volunteering job as a crisis counselor. I'm becoming more excited about the uncertainty about my life now rather than fearful about what my next step should be.

[pescatello]

Great artilce -

This is a common statement i've heard by many people. I think much of it stems from the expectations of family and society (aspirational TV, for example) going up and the realities of the world coming down (ability to get a job and succeed being that much tougher)

When the expectations and reality are conflicting, people get frustrated. Combine that with the trend that people move around so much and don't have a solid "base" and you get a crisis. We're malnourished in our relationships.

I wrote a whole blog post about this here: http://loo.me/2008/05/15/generation-me/ Check it out.

[dcress]

After I graduated high school, my mom told me I "needed my own state".

[NWReader]

How about you look up from your navel and realize how good you've got it? Your bed at mommy's house is still made. You have parents to call. You have a social life. You have a job. The only thing you need is a focus away from self. Take up some charitable work and put that nervous energy into helping others.

[rascal2q]

Excuse me, but that is exactly what a quarter-life crises is to me. I'm two years out of college, and my boss at work wanted to know how I envisioned my career, what I wanted to do and focus on, or whatnot. Well, I think I know what I want to do. But I have no idea how to get there. I'm still not making enough for the cost of my life, and I can't find a new job right now anyways because of the recession. Even my boyfriend accepted his first job out of college only a few weeks ago as technical support for TurboTax when he has a degree for economics and finance. Besides not knowing what I'm doing or how to do it, there's this recession that makes our chances of accomplishing anything nearly impossible. What about our generation of young professionals with degrees who can't get anything reasonable completed because of an outgoing Bush administration and slow to get going Obama administration that has to first clean up this whole debacle of America that Bush has created? Everyone keeps saying that change will happen in January, but there's so much doubt that anything will actually change until 2011.

[larry278]

How about those of us who never wanted to go home, broke away & have never returned? There's no place like home & I'm grateful for that.