Quarter Life Crisis

Courtesy of Universal Pictures

I read an article the other day about how this generation of 20-somethings are taking longer to grow up than our parents. If sociologists classify an adult as finishing education, declaring financial independence, getting married, having a child and leaving home, then 77% of women in their twenties had reached adulthood in 1960. Today it's less than half. 

I'm going to be 21 in less than a month and to be honest, this statistic doesn't scare me.
Women have more options now. We don't need to marry right out of high school and pop a baby out. We can join the workforce and the army and the justice league, blah blah blah... 

I've never felt any pressure to grow up faster. You have the rest of your life to be an adult. Right now I want to try new things and figure out what I like. I've chosen to be a writer, sure, but maybe I'll want to dip into something else later on.

Your twenties is the time to screw up and find the people you want to surround yourself with. It's a strange limbo where you're technically on your own, but still depending on your parents and still not quite sure how to use a laundry machine. On the other hand you don't have the commitment of going to work every morning, paying the bills or caring for a family. Instead of worrying about how many accomplishments I can count by the time I'm 30, I'm just going to start with learning how to do my own laundry. 


Read "Oh to Be Young" from this month's US edition of Elle.

Um, why do I sound like I'm giving the graduation speech in Eclipse?