I spent the majority of my 25-year-old self feeling alone amongst those who surround me. As I enter my 26th year, it seems nothing has changed. I still don't fit, I still don't belong. These thoughts plague my mind and I can't seem to find that sense of belonging so many others hold with ease. I'm lonely. This is not what twenty-something lives should be.
Our twenties are our best years. (Right?) It's when we have the best times with the best folks and drink the best drinks and dance our asses off at the best bars. It's like college - but better. (Right?) This is the expectation I had and yet here I sit in my noisy lower-class neighborhood apartment in my ratty sweatpants listening to mopey 90's pop music because I can't find a job in my career field and I could only find a seasonal job I am overqualified and under trained for. Great. I'm sure Mom and Dad are proud.
I'm embarrassed of myself. I am ashamed and feel like a fool for believing life in California would be such a breeze. I was determined for success, prepared for the higher cost of living and ready to manage the small paychecks until I was able to move up to bigger things...but no paychecks at all was not part of the plan. The dream started off so great but now I am surrounded by the reality of dwindling hope.
This is about the time where your friends realize you need some help and swoop in to cheer you up, distract you from your misery and encourage you that things will indeed get better. [crickets chirping] Ah, yes. Friends. I don't have very many of those and of the few I have, I have few things in common with them anymore.
The old friends from high school years have all moved on to marriage, bills and babies. No thank you.
The new friends are hard to keep for long. They drift in an out depending on schedules, work location and dating status.
There is a big group of folks down here in Los Angeles we call our friends. Truly we all just share a few simple facts in common: We're originally from Washington State and we went to the same University...that does not a friend make. It's taken me awhile to realize the difference between friend and person-who-seems-like-they-could-and-would-be-a-friend-but-are-not... and with the help of multiple non-invites to events this group holds together, its fairly clear I am not their friend. We are friendly to one another, but not friends. There is a difference.
No one calls, no one texts, heck - they barely respond to Facebook events I try to plan. This is a new low - a very lonely low.
I can't blame them completely for the lack of interest in me as a human-being. Perhaps I'm not that interesting. I'll watch sports but I could care less about the stats or the 30-bomb of cheap beers on the coffee table that should be chugged upon touchdown or score. I don't like overly crowded places and I HATE having to circle the block eight times to find the cheapest of the overpriced parking lots. I also don't like staying up past midnight for no good reason...if nothings happening, I'm going to bed. Basically I am a 70-year-old woman trapped in a 20-somethings body (though I'm most certain the old woman would take much more advantage of this 20-something body than I currently am).
I don't know what I would rather be doing, I just know the above events don't interest me. I want to do grown up things with people who are genuinely nice. The group of LA folks are straight of out Mean Girls (I'd hate to see my page in their burn book, I'm sure it's not flattering). At this point, it's not even that I feel I don't belong, it's that I'm not even invited to the event where I will feel like I don't belong.
So there it is. Maybe I feel like I don't fit in simply because I don't.
Perhaps I am better matched with the 30-something crowd...or at least the 70+ crowd. Bingo!
Our twenties are our best years. (Right?) It's when we have the best times with the best folks and drink the best drinks and dance our asses off at the best bars. It's like college - but better. (Right?) This is the expectation I had and yet here I sit in my noisy lower-class neighborhood apartment in my ratty sweatpants listening to mopey 90's pop music because I can't find a job in my career field and I could only find a seasonal job I am overqualified and under trained for. Great. I'm sure Mom and Dad are proud.
I'm embarrassed of myself. I am ashamed and feel like a fool for believing life in California would be such a breeze. I was determined for success, prepared for the higher cost of living and ready to manage the small paychecks until I was able to move up to bigger things...but no paychecks at all was not part of the plan. The dream started off so great but now I am surrounded by the reality of dwindling hope.
This is about the time where your friends realize you need some help and swoop in to cheer you up, distract you from your misery and encourage you that things will indeed get better. [crickets chirping] Ah, yes. Friends. I don't have very many of those and of the few I have, I have few things in common with them anymore.
The old friends from high school years have all moved on to marriage, bills and babies. No thank you.
The new friends are hard to keep for long. They drift in an out depending on schedules, work location and dating status.
There is a big group of folks down here in Los Angeles we call our friends. Truly we all just share a few simple facts in common: We're originally from Washington State and we went to the same University...that does not a friend make. It's taken me awhile to realize the difference between friend and person-who-seems-like-they-could-and-would-be-a-friend-but-are-not... and with the help of multiple non-invites to events this group holds together, its fairly clear I am not their friend. We are friendly to one another, but not friends. There is a difference.
No one calls, no one texts, heck - they barely respond to Facebook events I try to plan. This is a new low - a very lonely low.
I can't blame them completely for the lack of interest in me as a human-being. Perhaps I'm not that interesting. I'll watch sports but I could care less about the stats or the 30-bomb of cheap beers on the coffee table that should be chugged upon touchdown or score. I don't like overly crowded places and I HATE having to circle the block eight times to find the cheapest of the overpriced parking lots. I also don't like staying up past midnight for no good reason...if nothings happening, I'm going to bed. Basically I am a 70-year-old woman trapped in a 20-somethings body (though I'm most certain the old woman would take much more advantage of this 20-something body than I currently am).
I don't know what I would rather be doing, I just know the above events don't interest me. I want to do grown up things with people who are genuinely nice. The group of LA folks are straight of out Mean Girls (I'd hate to see my page in their burn book, I'm sure it's not flattering). At this point, it's not even that I feel I don't belong, it's that I'm not even invited to the event where I will feel like I don't belong.
So there it is. Maybe I feel like I don't fit in simply because I don't.
Perhaps I am better matched with the 30-something crowd...or at least the 70+ crowd. Bingo!
