A [So-Called] Quarter-Life Crisis

I woke up to the sound of Fergie’s ‘Clumsy’, my mobile phone’s alarm tune, at around 5 o’clock in the morning of May 16. Somehow, I got out of bed with an unusual enthusiasm to take a bath and dress up – something I’ve been very reluctant to do every Mondays toFridays of every workweek. (I’m never an early-morning person!) Maybe because today is what I fondly call “Lisa’s Day” – that special day of the year when I’d wake up with a smile and folks at home are unusually tolerant of me and my mini-dramas and mom’s special spaghetti is the kitchen’s specialty of the day; hey, it’s my birthday!

Today, I’m 25 and still, I don’t feel like it, at all. Back in the days when I was starting out in college, I pictured a twenty five year-old me as someone who’s at the top of her game in the corporate world, armed with a healthy savings account (and maybe even a dollar account), got her own car, a Master’s Degree under her belt, and a blooming love life. Fast forward to the present, here I am with a job that I enjoy (Well, at least so far…), a struggling savings account, still a certified commuter to and from the Metro, one-subject-plus-thesis-away master’s degree, and a nonexistent love life. Kinda not the thing I exactly expected, right? But come to think of it, summing up all of the 25 years of living my fair share of life, I must say that, yeah, it has been G-O-O-D so far. True, I may not exactly be at the top of the corporate ladder as I had previously hoped, but I like my job and I’ve found good friends along the way that add up to the colourful circle of the ones I already keep; my savings account is INDEED struggling because I opted to invest in my graduate studies instead pursuing what could have been a series of travels, shopping sprees, and techie gadgets, but at least I could still afford one or two little luxuries once in a while; my dream car is not going to materialize anytime soon, but at least that means more time to keep my cool and doze off on long roadtrips, plus swearing don’t add up to the list of my little (and not-so-little) sins whenever Metro traffic gets into drivers’ heads; I’m not yet done with my master’s degree but I’m quite proud of having come a long way with no failing grade (well, ALMOST!) and solely supporting my studies (Ok, maybe there were times when I’d be completely broke and had no choice but to swallow by pride and ask my mom for some allowance! Sheesh!); as for my love life, believe me, who wouldn’t want to enjoy the bliss of happy couplehood? But past mistakes made me realize that it doesn’t hurt to enjoy the perks of single while waiting for My One in the process. It doesn’t mean I’m just sitting around, doing nothing about it. Even my closest friends don’t know about this, but just to let you in on a little secret: I’m working on it. (Wish me luck, ladies!)

To cap it off, it has been a good and fruitful twenty five years, and I get to say a lot more of “Thank you for…” compared to “I wish I hadn’t…” at the end of the day. True, there were some things I had to learn the hard and narrow way, but in the end it only made me realize things that SHOULD matter more – my supportive family, loving parents, my very own band-aid-brigade set of friends, and LIFE itself. Instead of looking back one too many times, I choose to look forward to enjoying more surprises from my so-called Box of Chocolates for the next 365 days and beyond.