moving past the quarter life

Not that long ago I had a conversation with a dear friend about aging. It's true that I am only 27 (she is 28) and we are still relatively young in the grand scheme of things (although if we are talking the grand scheme of insect life, we are VERY old, but in the grand scheme of say, cedar trees we are mere saplings...at the age of 27 and 28 that is). But, I am talking human life... American humans, and in fact American, single women.

So, the thing is, both of us are idealists. Life from the ages of 22-25 as an idealist is absolute bliss. At least it was for me; simple because I had no attachments, no one to answer to and the world was full of mystery and opportunity. Do I sound overly romantic, and a bit self-centered? Good; that is how life is for an idealist, and I want you to get the picture.

Around the age of 25, things started to change for me a bit...well, they more changed for my friends, which also means they changed for me. Everyone got married. And I don't mean everyone, because clearly, I am not married. (Is it clear?) So anyhow, that changed things a bit, in the way that there were less people to hang out with. Mostly because a lot of married folks forget how to be around people other than their spouses--it's a strange phenomenon, I don't quite understand it. (And I don't entirely blame them.) I am just saying, this is the way I've experienced it for the most part.

So, as an American, single woman (and idealist too!), this whole situation leaves one trying to figure out where their community went and why life is demanding more and more decisions and commitments. I guess there is this whole idea of the quarter life crisis? You've heard of it I'm sure. (And I don't tell you all this without a certain amount of embarrassment.) Well, that is all part of what lead to the conversation I had with my friend.

The crisis is over, and has been over for about a year or two now, but it's definitely taken about that much time to level out. But over the course of that year or so (while the idealism was dying a slow, ugly death), the way I think about life started to change a whole lot. A lot of the entitlement and selfishness started to be exposed. God was gracious in letting that stuff boil to the surface so I could see it for myself. (Let it be known that the boiling process is excruciatingly uncomfortable. Think: lobster in a pot.) It was necessary though, I suppose, if I believe God is all-knowing. Which I do.

So, all that leads to now--the convo about aging, thinking about life differently--less idealistically, planning for the future...navigating, plotting, trusting (God). A man who understood the reality of his own nothingness was Trappist monk, Thomas Merton. I read this quote from Choosing to Love the World this morning. Perhaps it will bring light to what I'm trying to say (much more eloquently than how I've communicated it).

"Dread is an expression of our insecurity in this earthly life, a realization that we are never and can never be completely "sure" in the sense of possessing a definitive and established spiritual status. It means we cannot any longer hope in ourselves, in our wisdom, our virtues, our fidelity. We see to clearly that all that is "ours" is nothing, and can completely fail us. In other words we no longer rely on what we "have," what has been given by our past, what has been required. We are open to God and to His mercy in the inscrutable future and our trust in the emptiness where we will confront unforeseen decisions. Only when we have descended in the dread to the center of our own nothingness, by His grace and His guidance, can we be led by Him, in His own time, to find Him in losing ourselves." --On Contemplation