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(from 20-Something, 20-Everything:A Quarter-Life Woman's Guide to Balance and Direction, New World Library 2005) At the age of twenty-eight, let me begin by saying that my twenty-something years definitely have been my twenty-everything years. They simply have not been the type of "everything" that I thought they would be. I know that many other twenty-something women can relate to this feeling. After all, we are young women in a society where an unbelievable amount of attention is focused on doing and having it all — it’s only a matter of time before Prozac becomes an impulse buy at Starbucks. Imagine walking into a local coffee shop and saying, "I’ll take a grande latte and 50 milligrams of happy pills — oh, and would you add a shot of pheromones so I can attract the man of my dreams, and a crystal ball so I can see if this career I work at so hard will pay off?" If such an order were possible, my coffee habit would have become a serious addiction by now. You see, I’ve undergone my own twenty-something crisis I’ve always been an overachiever who put a ton of pressure on myself. I graduated from a top-ten university after spending three and a half years stressing myself out to get A’s, a double major, and a few jobs under my belt. Before the ink on my diploma was dry, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of working in the entertainment industry. I did not know exactly what I wanted to do, but I assumed that once I got to L.A., things would fall into place. My first job was answering phones at a talent agency for $250 a week. Later I went from job to job in the industry, trying to figure out how I could move from an assistant to an executive position. At twenty-five, I ended up as a television literary agent at one of the most prestigious entertainment companies in Los Angeles. I had an office with a view, an assistant who answered my phone, an expense account, a real salary, power lunches, industry screenings, clients, and business cards. I dated and attended industry events. From the outside, my life looked great. I appeared successful and well on my way to having it all. There was just one problem: I was absolutely miserable. Daily I tried to talk myself into liking my job. I had spent four years building my career, not to mention the hundred thousand dollars (yikes!) invested in education to prepare me for it. I felt obligated to stay on my track, but the long hours, the rude people, the cutthroat competition, the boys’-club environment, and the fact that I hated what I did every day made me sick. I had migraines at least twice a week, the stress threw my hormones completely out of whack, and I was becoming quite a bitch. In order to save myself from a total meltdown, I quit. Leaving my prestigious career changed most of my circumstances, except one. I was still miserable. Completely burned out and craving a total change of direction, I became a personal trainer, thinking I would love a career in the health business — I thought that it might be my "passion." Wrong again. Working in a gym was boring compared to the fast-paced life I had been living. I was even ashamed to admit to people that I was a trainer and spent my days counting to twelve. I felt as if I had been just floating along ever since I had left my Hollywood gig. During this time, my boyfriend and I moved in together. We were very much in love, the perfect couple (people even called us Ken and Barbie). Yet our prenuptial cohabitation infuriated my mother to the point of freak-out. She said things I never dreamt she would say to me. We did not speak for a while. This devastated me, as we had always been close. For the first time, I felt that the umbilical cord connecting me to my family had been severed. When I hit the ripe age of twenty-six, an age by which I had always thought my adult life would really be shaping up, my wonderful boyfriend proposed to me in the most amazing and romantic way. I was in utter bliss (for a while). I was getting married, my mom and I made up, and my future seemed more certain. But then reality set in again: problems with his family; feelings of hesitation about the wedding; ongoing dissatisfaction with myself, my body, my career. By my twenty-seventh birthday, I did not feel much like celebrating. And I felt guilty about my depression because I did have a loving fiancé, a supportive family who would do anything for me, a great opportunity to build a business as a trainer, and terrific friends. Why was I so unhappy? One month later, the ground completely fell out from under me. In a premarital counseling session, my fiancé told me that he loved me but did not want to marry me. He did not even want to work on our relationship. I fell apart; he was the one thing that I had thought was definite in my life, and in the space of an hour, I lost him. The person I thought was my "soulmate" was gone just as my career, ambition, and self-confidence disappeared. I then had to deal with finding a place to live, trying to make more money, and un-planning a wedding. The hurt, embarrassment, and shock of a breakup was something I had never planned on facing. I felt as if I had hit rock bottom — no career, no relationship, no money, and really not much love for myself or my life in general. I lost about twenty pounds, got very depressed, and faced each day with knots in my stomach. In my twenties, I went from having everything I had thought I wanted to having nothing at all. I felt like I was already having a life crisis when my adult life was just beginning. I had two choices: I could throw in the towel, move home, and try to forget about the life I had failed at; or I could dig in, look at my life, and try to figure out who I really was, what I really wanted, and how I was going to get it. Well, I guess the decision I made is pretty obvious. Let me introduce myself. My name is Christine Hassler, and I am a survivor of a twenty-something crisis. |
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