I was standing in the bread aisle of Cube Foods when it hit me: I’ll be choosing what I eat for dinner for almost the rest of my life. My basket filled with expensive goods quickly went away. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. quick quick quick quick quick quick quick quick) bread .
There are few things more terrifying than realizing how boring life is. I don’t care what anyone says: your 20s may not be the best years of your life. They are tales of Sisyphean futility, meant to strengthen your tolerance for stupidity as you line up with the real world. His name must be called to overcome this undeniably stupid problem.
“I think it’s really fun to get out of the house. I like being able to be on my own, but it’s definitely been an adjustment,” said Keaton Amundson, a freshman at the University of Minnesota.
Her comment on the teenage honeymoon reminded me of my own experience as a sweet summer child just entering the world. I started to feel guilty for getting so angry at compounding minor problems.
But then I remembered that I had to decide what to eat for dinner tonight and the anger quickly returned.
I know, I know. What kind of spoiled brat complains about the right to safe food?
Not dinner, see. It is the decision to prepare dinner. What should be, then how to do it, to make the plates and put them. Every day thousands of small decisions add up to life. That’s why it’s confusing when you’re on your own to be burdened with the chores you need to maintain homeostasis. It has a high stake. But again, no.
An essential characteristic of life as a 20-something is the belief that your particular brand of suffering has never been experienced before, and the next ego death follows when you realize that everyone else has. Is there anything more embarrassing than that?
As a kid, I thought being in my 20s meant unadulterated freedom.
In reality, those unopened self-help books you should have turned away weeks ago are piles of clothes on the nightstand and “on the chair.” Miss Mom’s call as she runs out the door with half a protein bar in hand and starts piling up.
Finally getting away from your hometown and dreaming of visiting next time. By Wednesday, $12 in your bank account and splitting a bottle of wine at dinner with friends.
An era marked by transition and change cannot be so exciting. Sorry, I won’t accept it. But the situation of Sisyphus, and perhaps our own morality, is to find a way to enjoy the difficult situations that life involves.
I haven’t made it there yet, but I guess the peace you get as you get older is in realizing that these little frivolities free you from expecting life to be something else.
Coming of age has nothing to do with the ideal stories that make it to the silver screen. Falling in love and learning more about how to unclog a shower drain, but we shouldn’t let the lie that your 20s are the time of your life detract from the often chaotic joy that can be had by being a directionless fantasy.
I think, more than anything, people in their 20s want to know that they’re not alone, that they’re alive in one way or another. All that wisdom seems to magically appear as you get older if you actually experience it.
