Post-college, your suddenly thrown out into the “real-world.” Suddenly being “busy” doesn’t mean running to organizational meetings filled with people you love and enjoy working with, around issues that you care about. “Busy” means trying to figure out a way to pay all of your bills on a nothing salary (keeping in mind you have no idea what a “budget” even is), while simultaneously learning how to be a “professional” and an “adult.”
Suddenly, going out on the weekend doesn’t mean throwing on your favorite pair of sneakers and a relatively ironed shirt and jeans. It means attending dinner parties with your co-workers and bosses, in an uncomfortable cocktail dress, pretending like you know the difference between german and french cheeses.
Meanwhile everyone is telling you how your twenties are supposed to be “the greatest time of your life,” and to have as much fun as possible while you can. But your tuning them out because your trying to figure out if “grown up” dating means you can sleep with someone on the first date, or if your supposed to wait until you figure out “where this is going” (whatever that means).
In the midst of all of this, somehow, often happiness gets lost in translation.
I don’t know many people who actually know what makes them happy.
Most post-grads I know will always fall back to the usual standby “my friends and family make me happy.” But what happens when your friends and family are a million miles away because your new job has you halfway across the country? Is happiness than lost?
For many folks, this is exactly what happens. The pressures of trying to figure out adulthood, career and self begin to preempt any attempt at happiness. We work ourselves into the grind most days out of the week, and then wait until we can hop on a plane, hop on a train or just head downtown to see some friends for our “happiness” boost.
But as everyday passes, and more friends begin to get married, have kids or become more embedded in their respective careers and lives. It occurs to me that perhaps the “friendship quotient” for happiness is no longer sufficient. It appears that “adult happiness” comes more from within than from without.
So suddenly I’m asking myself questions like, “what activities do I actually enjoy?” “What lightens my 
spirit after a tough day? “What sure-fire things can I do to make sure that I feel happy and uplifted on a daily (as opposed to bi-monthly) basis?” It’s funny because I find myself going back to the things I loved as a child and teenager. Creative writing, music, athletic activity and reading for pleasure have resurged as major aspects of my daily life.
It seems that as children, we are much better at taking care of our own happiness than we are as adults.
What makes you happy?
peace.
No related posts.
dear peachie,
as you know, i just celebrated my sixtieth birthday…yep i know pretty scary huh? for the first time in birthday milestones; this one gave me quite a pause.
on my fiftieth: i decared myself middle age because certainly i will live to be one hundred; no problem, and isn’t fifty the new thirty?. on my fortieth: i was too busy to think about it: enjoying you and your sister and taking you to piano, ski, horseback riding lessons etc., and getting mad at anyone who mistakened me for your grandmother; (were they blind or what)? and although i had some trepidation about turning thirty, it actually turned into one of the best decades of my life, (more about that later). 16 and twenty-one were both anti-climactic.
when people say that the twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life that certainly was not true for me…i experienced them as quite unhappy, turbulent almost like the terrible twos with a zero added for extra punch; fueled by my efforts to live up to everyone elses expectations, and not trusting my own. it seemed that everyone had a better idea about what i should do with my life; and when i didn’t fulfill their benchmarks i felt pretty crummy.
i wasn’t the pretty girl who was the life of the party; i’d rather stay home in my pajama’s with a good book, and you know i have absolutely no rhythmn, i’m tactile defensive and crowds make me nervous. but still in all, i’d put on that little party dress and go to the bars to become part of the “meat market” (the lafayette orleans where all the beautiful people hung out) with my friends and sit there waiting, waiting, waiting to get “chose”, pretty sad huh?, and what is even sadder, is i never got “chose,” but silly me, that never stopped me from trying, and comparing myself to the girls who did get the guys, lol.
i just know that by the time i was 26, and mr.right hadn’t appeared on his magical horse to sweep me away, i was pretty nervous…heck in my mind (which wasn’t actually my mind but belonged to the expectations of all of my friends, and maybe society too) i was supposed to be working on my first baby by then.
too bad for me that i didn’t appreciate the fact that i had my youth, my masters by age 23, my own apartment, my own car, great friends, great clothes, healthy parents, my own health (including no communicable diseases, if you know what i mean), a fabulous job that allowed me to travel all over the county, including hawaii and the carribean, etc. too bad that i didn’t appreciate that all of these experiences were preparing me for my future, and getting me ready to live my “own” life, set by my own standards, and to become authentically who i was to become.
so on my 30th birthday, because i had “failed,” i decided to opt out: i just decided to be who i am, stop waiting on my life to start, to do what i wanted to do, to stop caring about what anyone else thought, and yes to spend saturday night in my own house curled up with a good book, (preferably by toni morrison), with some nice earth, wind, and fire, playing in the background, and maybe eat a little greens and cornbread. (as opposed to sushi)!
and believe it or not that is when the magic happened!
that is when i found my own power: i became at peace with who i am; and the only person’s opinion i really cared about was my own. and curiously enough that’s when i began to have my choice of the guys; but more importantly, i appreciated my independence, my knidness and that i was a good person, my quietness, and that i don’t neccessarily think like everyone else; and suprisingly enough that’s when everything else came…like you and your sister, and true friendhips, and the guys weren’t so bad either. yes-siree, my thirties were great!
so here i am at the big six-0, not feeling at all diffrent then i have ever felt; but it is just that number!!! 6-0 wow!!!
it took me a while to figure it out, but one day when i was out on my morning walk it just came to me: I AM RIPE AND JUICY! and that’s what i’m taking into the next decade is that all of these experiences have made me ripe and juicy!
love you,
mommy