The Covid Quarter-Life
But what the fuck am I going to do with my life? The question to the left has been a hard one to shake. I find those words filling my head nightly as I toss and turn and reentering my brain immediately as I regain consciousness in the morning. Something about this pandemic has made me feel as though I am experiencing a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-one, which I guess would be considered a quarter-life crisis? Hopefully I am not alone in this…
The past eight weeks, I can’t believe it’s been eight weeks… have instilled a gnawing sense of anxiety in me. I am constantly scrutinizing all aspects of my life, as if trying to identify all parts of a multi-faceted equation that has gotten me to exactly where I am now. Why did I make the decisions I made: why did I prioritize certain things over others, why am I studying what I’m studying, why aren’t my grades better, what are my passions, what am I good at, what will I do after graduation, will I ever be successful, what is success… the list goes on.
As I try to do schoolwork, this voice creeps in. “Why are you writing that, why aren’t your ideas better, why is this taking you so long, why aren’t you using this excess time effectively?” When I work on extra curriculars or anything career related, it chimes in again: “you sound unintelligent, you’re unaccomplished, you don’t deserve this, you’re not a good candidate, you should have been proactive sooner, etc..” This voice has become so dominant and demoralizing that little room is left for much else. It creates a vicious cycle of self-doubt, making it difficult to accomplish tasks, making me self-conscious about not being productive, starting the cycle all over again.
Most of all, the voice makes it nearly impossible to be in the present. I feel torn between two realities: analyzing past decisions, wondering what things would be like now had I done something differently, or, worrying about the outcome of future decisions because I already feel tormented by the ‘what if’s’ of the past. Either way, I am not taking ownership over the things I can control now. Despite recognizing the problematic nature of this mental tug of war though, the voice still comes in: “how can you make decisions now when you already might have made wrong choices in the past?” These incessant thoughts render me unable to do much of anything.
Given that I don’t recall this voice being nearly as extreme pre-COVID-19, I know there must be some connection. I’m sure I speak for many when I say that the physical distancing resulting from the pandemic has brought with it unprecedented amounts of self-reflection. Self-reflection for university third years is especially poignant as we find ourselves confronted with the reality that our time before graduation is limited and we may never experience university in the conventional sense again. For me, the reality that life after university is approaching is hitting like a truck while time simultaneously seems to be suspended in its entirety.
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Day after day, we are left to dwell on these subjects with little to no distraction. The time we were meant to have to bridge the transition from third to fourth year has been stripped away, leaving our entrance into our final year of university and the ‘big girl’ decisions that will take place during it feeling abrupt and overwhelming. Especially if you consider it the final year of the linear trajectory that has defined your life up to this point, these thoughts can quickly spiral and induce some pretty acute anxiety, or at least, this has been what is happening for me.
At first, I could not pinpoint why I was suddenly feeling so anxious, pessimistic, and overwhelmed. It was an all-consuming aura following me around the house that was quickly noticed by my mom and her boyfriend, John. One day as I moped around the kitchen, John asked me a peculiar question: “what do you call yours?” After my long speculative stare, he followed with: “mine is named Larry.” He went on to explain that Larry is his voice of negativity; a sort of anti-cheerleader that tries to convince him he is not good enough. Larry has had a varying presence in his life but has the tendency to lurk in the background until his most uncertain and vulnerable moments. “We all have a Larry”, he explained. “It’s just that most people don’t give him a name.”
I initially considered telling my mom that her boyfriend might have a personality disorder. I was hesitant to name this negative voice that had become so prominent because well, it sounded like the first step to admitting having serious issues. All I could think about was James McAvoy’s character in Split… convincing me that putting a name to this would be accepting the existence of some variation of an inner Patricia waiting to jump out at any moment. After thinking it over a bit though, I figured what the hell; I didn’t exactly have anything to lose. I named the voice Gretchen.
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Strangely enough, naming Gretchen proved beneficial for me. That is not to say that the anxiety and negativity stopped, but I was able to identify it as something temporary and make peace with it. Instead of constantly fighting myself asking why I am having these thoughts and feelings, I can just accept that Gretchen is paying me a visit and that given the circumstances of the times right now, that’s ok. Just like an unwanted dinner party guest, all I can really do is pull up a seat for her at the table and wait for her to finish her meal. Most importantly though, just because she’s there and talking, doesn’t mean I have to listen to her. Does telling myself that Gretchen is acting up today make me feel weird? Yes…of course, but it’s helped me distinguish between useless negativity and productive self-reflection.
Something else that struck me was a zoom mindfulness talk, yes that’s right zoom-mindfulness, with Dr. David Baum and Olympic rower Silken Laumann, to talk about building your resiliency muscle during COVID-19. I only attended because my mom and John were friends with David Baum, but his words actually resonated with me. He shared a proverb about a king seeking advice from his wiseman on how to overcome difficult periods of rule. The wiseman responded by giving him a gold ring with the inscription ‘this too shall pass’, to serve as a constant reminder to the King of the temporary nature of the human condition. No matter how hard something is, it is not permanent. Whether you like it or not, life will go on and all you can do is focus on the present.
I’m starting to think that I could use a ring like that too. As my mind starts to wander into all the unknowns of the past and future, I am trying to remind myself of this phrase. This pandemic will pass, these uncertainties will become more certain, and although the rest of our university experience may pan out much differently than anticipated, it is still going to happen and we will move on from it. All we can do is approach this discomfort instead of letting it chase us back inside.
Images
Directed and photographed by Dagny Tepper, modeled by Ishana Shyamalan