The Quarter Life Crisis

The high school ‘what am I doing with my life?’ reunion 

thelifecrisis
Betches (aka the story of my life) http://www.betches.com/

 

Traditionally, a high school reunion is an opportunity to brag to your former nose-picking, homework-copying friends about how much of a successful adult you’ve become.

“Well, as company director it’s a tough life eating caviar on board my private helicopter”

“Obviously, all my children learned to speak Chinese before the age of five, can your children talk yet?”

“Cathy was such a bitch. Oh, hi Cathy! So good to see you again, oh wow your hair hasn’t changed has it?” 

After exchanging numbers and catching up on years gone by, everybody goes home and carries on with their actually quite distinctly average lives.

It was only the other day, when being flung into a ‘cucumber sandwich, look at me now’ situation felt far in the distance, I woke up to the horrible realisation that my high school reunion time is here – and I’m not even sure adulthood is for me. 

Fast approaching ten years out of school and still haven’t found a cure for bad hair days, I, along with my friends (aka cats) am wondering “where did the years go? What have I been doing with my life all this time?!”

If you’ve bumped into some familiar faces on your journey to adulthood, you’ll have probably attempted to answer the inevitable “so, what are you doing with your life?” question. 

Buzzfeed - https://goo.gl/nEVFgJ
Buzzfeed – https://goo.gl/nEVFgJ

 

For me, the joy of this question comes with an embarrassingly nervous alcohol induced ramble in which I announce my biggest achievement since leaving school is winning the ‘Human Hoover’ award at the work Christmas do for eating up the office snacks (very proud).

But if there’s one thing more awkward than answering questions about yourself – it’s asking your former schoolmate questions you already know the answer to because, apparently, you’ve spent the last ten years stalking them on social media – it’s practically a CV worthy skill. 

Thanks to Facebook, post-school antics have been well documented across endless photos of regrettable nights out, posts of what’s being eaten for breakfast and embarrassing relationship status updates.

It’s very difficult to ask “so how are you?” without following with “since 2010 when you moved to the other side of the world and were tagged in a photo with someone my mate swiped right for on Tinder last weekend – oh and do you have the pencil shapener you borrowed from me in year eight? Its my favourite, okay thanks bye” #awks. 

But, in between the pressure to achieve the goals society has kindly set out for us, is the reassurance that we’re all in the same boat. It might not be a yacht (yet), it’s definitely a dinghy, but at least my generation are great at being honest in laughing at ourselves as we muddle through adulthood. 

   

25 thoughts on “The high school ‘what am I doing with my life?’ reunion ”

  1. Great blog, laughed out loud at one point, I actually lol’d! At this point however you have achieved something! More of this please…. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  3. LOL. too funny. October is my 40th high school reunion. I think the two biggest questions would be “Who aint dead?” followed by “Who the hell was that?”

    Liked by 3 people

  8. Heck, you don’t need a job or stinking wealth for things like this, you just turn up and go: “I are fabulous, yo!” – then you get a bit too drunk, lean on shttuff at a awkward ankle and generhally make a fewl off yourself. Lol.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Haha I love this post! Perfectly sums up how I feel about the dreaded high school reunions. Also our generation is doing pretty great, if you ask me – we’re stuck in a fabulous dinghy, who needs a yacht? Retweeting this. x

    Liked by 1 person

  15. I’ve seen old friends over the years but avoided the official reunion. Mostly they want to talk about old times and the crazy things we did as teenagers.

    I’m more interested in the crazy things I’m going to do in my 60’s!

    Liked by 1 person

  16. Great irony in this post. Cheer up, it will get better. I attended my {gulp} 5-0 reunion over the weekend. Incredibly the mean kids from high school are still mean, they’re just now overweight [snicker]. Thank you for swinging by the Ranch. We ❤︎ visitors especially those with whom we can identify.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. I just passed up the opportunity to go to my 50th Reunion( yes I am THAT old). It was a five hour plane ride so I sent photos and a snail mail letter instead. One of my former classmates sent a few pics from the reunion. I only recognized three people. Seriously. They looked older but the same and all the others were unrecognizable! Jeez! I saw them 25 years ago at the last reunion I went to and then I still knew who they were. So…is it them and they have all changed physically or is this my first clue that I have an onset of dementia? Just sayin’.

    Liked by 1 person

  21. Pingback: High school days | theBREAD
  25. Pingback: RIP Fridge – Quarter Life Crisis Chronicles

Leave a comment