Twentysomething-itis

Weeks ago, I was poised to make a post about Megan Fox and Michael Bay, which is still sitting in a Word document as a half-formed embryo. Why didn't I post it? A nasty bout of Twentysomething-itis.

Being as I am, at the tail end of my twenties, with virtually nothing to show for my efforts, I am prone to contracting the occasional case of Tewntysomething-itis. This tends to become particularly pronounced during essay season, where I struggle not to be overwhelmed by assessment tasks, and inevitably fail. This leads to rigorous self criticism - I can't do this, I don't want to do this, why am I trying to do this, I'm never going to get this shit finished, am I insane? I feel trapped in the house, and in my room; I feel trapped by my financial situation (broke); I feel like I'm never going to find a job that will both financially support me, and which will also fulfil me. I feel like I'm never going to graduate from my bachelor degree, let alone make it into, and through, post-grad. I feel like the deadline for everything I want to do and achieve is September 2011...my thirtieth birthday.

So, what is it that I want? What are all of these unattainable goals?

The simple wants are things like some fricken SPACE. I love my folks, and even my brother, and without their willingness to let me move back home, not to mention financial assistance with everything from car repairs to not accepting a cent as contribution towards household bills, I would have never been able to return to uni. However, as someone who has lived on their own for years, living in someone else's house is HARD. All of my stuff is either crammed into my childhood bedroom with me, or is crammed into the shed in the backyard. It looks like a fricken game of Tetris in my bedroom and I can never find anything. There is nowhere quiet or non-distracting to study, and as I have an entire household of goods squeezed into my bedroom, there's no room for a desk and therefore study must be done on the bed. This is not comfortable for more than maybe 2 hours at a time. The twitches of discomfort in my back, knees, shoulders, and the claustrphobic press of clothes, books, DVD's and knicknacks is opressive.

I want to have more than one room to work in. I want to be able to find a book, CD or DVD when I want it without the necessity to hire a team of archeologists to unearth it. I want a dishwasher named 'Smeg', not a dishwasher named 'Mum'. I want to use my zebra print dinner plates, my fuschia drinking glasses, my colour-coded, hygienic cutting boards and my ice cream scoop with the cow on the handle. I want to be able to have ice cream in the freezer without the fear that my brother is going to inhale it the second he detects its presence! I want to be able to get up from studying without the well-meaning query "How's the essay going?" assaulting my already fragile balance of concentration and stress. I want to be able to get up at 4am and do a load of laundry just because I feel like it, and not have to EVER sort through any quantity of my brother and father's dirty undies/grease-soaked work pants. I want to put frozen hash browns into the toaster to cook without Mum having a stroke about the potential for the oil to catch on fire. I want to sit on a comfortable couch. I want to have my friends over in the middle of the week so we can get astoundingly drunk and all pass out in various unflattering poses on and around the lounge room furniture. I WANT MY OLD LIFE BACK!!!

Slightly less simple - I want to finish my degree. All going well, this SHOULD have been within my grasp by the end of 2010. Instead, I've had this annoying and disruptive lupus, which has sapped my energy and motivation in all new quantities. I'm struggling to concentrate on anything for more than two minutes, and I have never been as tired as this in my entire life. I can't muster up the will to get out of my PJ's, let alone get in the car and go to uni. So now I'm wondering whether I'm going to pass any of my classes for this semester, which would put me back a whole six months. I can just imagine that if that happens, it's going to be even harder for me to maintain the motiviation to finish at all. The sooner I get the degree done, the sooner I can move on with my life. Get a full time job and move out? Maybe apply for a post-grad program right away, or maybe wait for a while and focus on getting some money saved up instead? I can't even think about this stuff until step one (degree) is sorted, except do you think that stops me? Instead, I worry about it incessantly.

You can see where I'm going with this, right? I want to travel, I want to buy my own place, I want to learn how to restore furniture, I want to start yoga, I want to learn how to play the piano. I want to go a postgraduate diploma in Media and Communication, then I want to do a Master of Teaching, then I want to teach high school English and Media. I don't want to be 30, unemployed, still completing my undergraduate degree, and be living with my parents. Classic Twentysomething-itis.

So, what does one do to cure Twentysomething-itis? Well, I'm not sure that there is an effective cure for all sufferers. Some will go on to suffer from Thirtysomething-itis, the Mid-Life Crisis, and possibly Dirty Old Man/Woman Syndrome (normally afficts only the wealthy). Forcing yourself to get the hell out of bed and into some fresh air is probably a good start. I find spending some time mapping out goals and achievements also helps - get an organised perspective on where you want to go, while reminding yourself of what you've already achieved. I've just had a very uplifting phone conversation not five minutes ago with an old work colleague and mentor, who was calling to let me know about a reference she had just given me for a job I've applied for. It was really nice to hear what she had to say about me, plus it sounds like I've got a good chance of getting this job. The income from this new job would also go a long way to helping me feel less trapped, and more like I'm on my way to achieving some of my goals. I need to let go of this fixation with turning 30 and the notion that I must have achieved everything I want before then. Quite frankly, I think some professional therapy would also help, but that costs time and money I don't have right now so it'll have to wait. It would be awesome if this huge zit on my nose would go away too. Zits are not empowering, especially when you're 28.

So all I can do right now is pop the seal on another can of Coke Zero, re-adjust my pillows, and try and get these fucking essays finished. Or at least started. I'll turn off this episode of Wife Swap (seriously...what the eff????) and I won't play Farmville, Zombie Farm, Tetris or Angry Birds. I'll take a deep breath and imagine the future day when I'll be sitting back on my own comfy sofa, with Zombieland playing on the TV and a cup of white jasmine tea steeping in my zebra print mug, and my Bachelor of Arts hanging framed on my wall. I'll be surfing the web for cheap overseas flights, recovering from a huge night out and getting ready to crack open a tub of vanilla bean and macadamia ice cream. Maybe I'll even have my dream job by then...if I've figured out what that is by then.