The phrase “twenty-something” has been introduced into my
regular vernacular lately… probably because I see it used all over the place
these days. I suppose it was coined as a blanket term to refer to those of us
in that pivotal, life-altering age bracket: when we aren’t exactly kids anymore
but still wouldn’t quite call ourselves adults; when our age is practically defined by this state of transition; when
our teenage years are still a fairly recent memory, and yet we are
simultaneously entering in a phase of life filled with weddings and baby
showers. It is not uncommon for my Facebook newsfeed to toggle between posts
about getting drunk at the club, right alongside gushing mothers announcing,
“Baby Jake took his first steps today!” – both belonging to people in my same
graduating class. This juxtaposition is bewildering to say the very least.
As someone who is far from having kids, but also far from
going out clubbing every night (although, to be fair, there was never really a time when I was out
clubbing), I find myself wondering where I fit in this generation. By some
accounts, I am an adult. I moved away
from my hometown for the first time last year, and have lived in two more
cities since. There are no bills that I don’t pay completely on my own. And,
with a gun to my head, I could probably explain to you the benefits of
investing your 401k. But at the same time, in so many ways I still feel so much
like a kid – My parents are still on speed dial for all general life questions
(“Mom! I spilled nail polish on the carpet, what do I do?!”), and when I hear
about people my age getting married and having babies I still can’t quite wrap
my head around it. I have also
heard the term “quarter-life crisis” used to refer to this general phenomenon.
I found that this manifested itself most recently in my
experience of Christmas this year. And, if the internet is any indication, it’s
not just me.
Now, granted, my 2013 Christmas holiday is unique in itself,
considering that I am essentially homeless in between two living situations.
All of my possessions are in storage as I road-trip my way down the coast to
visit family. This meant that leading up to the trip, this was the first year in
my entire 24 years of life that I didn’t erect a Christmas tree (which, alone,
made me a little more melancholy than I care to admit), and gift shopping /
wrapping was a lot less of an event than usual. As a result, my holiday season
as a whole was remarkably unremarkable, feeling much the same as every other
month of the year. All of these could also be factored into an atypical holiday
experience.
But nevertheless, I was going to spend ALL of Christmas with
my family in San Diego – a first in awhile for me. The highlight of the trip was going to be spending the night
IN my parents’ house on Christmas Eve, something I hadn’t done since moving
out. I looked forward to completely reverting back to my childhood, with all
the same wonder and tradition, and had no reason to expect anything otherwise.
But I would be lying if I said it felt the same. Something
had definitely shifted during my absence.
There was something inescapably different about this
Christmas. Even just deciding where to sit to open presents was enough to give
me anxiety. (This goes back to the old
“which-family-reunion-table-do-you-belong-to” debacle.) I used to always sit on
the bottom stair, right next to my little sister, but now I felt like that area
was too spotlighted. I’m too old to be in the center of the action now, aren’t
I? But the couch – where my mom, dad, and older brothers all sat in a
semi-circle – also seemed out of reach. I might not be the whirlwind of energy
that my little sister is, but I also don’t think I’ve quite reached the point where I’m solely a spectator, either.
 |
| See what I mean here? |
And speaking of my little sister, Christianne started high
school this year. Was that the event that triggered this relative apathy in
her? Sure, she was excited. It is Christmas, after all. But I had memories of
her running full-speed around the house in footie pajamas, screaming at the top
of her lungs about Santa coming… and by comparison, this Christianne was practically bored. For one thing, she took the
time to change clothes before coming downstairs. Who does that? Or I
should say, what kid does that? Her
eagerness to grow up just ignites the opposite compulsion in me.
And another thing – Santa seems a lot lazier than I
remember. Christianne’s name was written in black Sharpie on the wrapping paper
itself, rather than on individual tags, and gift bags were more the
giftwrap-of-choice than in previous years. The sheer quantity of presents
seemed to pale in comparison to my memories of past Christmases, when I swear
you couldn’t see the carpet through the mountains and mountains of toys… But
that’s just it, are my memories skewed because I’m looking at them through the
rose-colored glasses of childhood? Has Santa always had these habits, and only now
am I seeing them with the wide-eyed skepticism of an adult?
I think Christmas might be the most raw example of the
‘quarter-life crises’ we twenty-somethings face on a daily basis. And, to be
fair, I think Christianne is going through her own version of this as she
grapples with becoming a teenager, having to decide how willing she is to show
enthusiasm for something like Christmas without it making her “uncool.” For
that matter, bless my parents for having to play witness to all of our
respective existential battles, more than likely reflecting on their own place
in the world as much as we are. Maybe the entire human experience is just waltzing
from one demographic to the next, constantly in a state of transition and meeting the unique challenges of each
with growing composure and perspective.
…On the other hand, maybe we should have just bought a goddamn
Christmas tree.
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