Crazy

Sometimes I think that I’ve gone crazy.

There was a time in college when a dear friend of mine did just that.  She was having some kind of mental break and living in a land that made no sense to the rest of us.  Among her delusions was the idea that she had indeed discovered the center of the universe.  On our college campus.  In the woods.  She would spend hours talking to us about the things she’d discovered, almost yelling at us that it was right in front of our eyes and we didn’t see it; we didn’t understand it.  I remember feeling lots of feelings about the whole situation, but mostly having this frightening idea that we might all be wrong.  That perhaps she had discovered something out there in those woods and we’re the crazy ones for not listening to her more thoughtfully.  I mean, aren’t some of the greatest thinkers of our time totally ape-shit nuts?  Maybe all the people out there having psychotic breaks were onto something—perhaps they’re the ones that are right and we’re the ones that are wrong.

When they get back to a “normal” place (where is that place, anyway?), I always wonder do they feel different?  Is it like meeting your spirit animal while you’re high on hallucinogenics?  Or like traveling to the after-life during a surgery and coming back to life?  Are you changed?  Do you have some deeper insight into the world?  Or are you so stoned on anti-psychotics that you can’t be allowed to feel changed?

Sometimes when I meet someone really crazy, I realize that experience in college never left me; I never shook that feeling and I try (if possible) to listen with a slightly more careful ear.  Who knows, they might be saying something very truthful in their babble.  Although here in Baltimore, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between real crazy and crack crazy.

And on those days (like today) where I, too, feel crazy, I wonder how close I am to being really crazy.  Sometimes I wonder if I teeter a little too close to the edge.  I know sometimes when words fly out of my mouth uncontrollably and I think to myself, “WHO SAID THAT?  ME? NO!”  Or when a string of irrational thoughts enter my head (usually involving men) and I think, “I don’t have thoughts like this! Out, out damned spot!”  But they happen, regardless.  Without warning or warrant.

I wish someone would have told me how schizophrenic my twenties would be.  Each year I wind down closer to the end of this disastrous decade, wiser, stronger, and with better stories to tell, but feeling undoubtedly more crazy.  I guess it wouldn’t have mattered if someone had told me—and they probably did and I just blew them off like everyone else—because that is part of the beauty of your twenties.  YOU DON’T GIVE A FLYING FART.  When someone tells you something at age 19, you think, “Yeah right, man!  You don’t know anything!  I’M SPECIAL! I’M DIFFERENT!”  The truth, at age 27, and despite being quite “special” and “different”, I’m not that special at all.  And I’m not that different.  Sadly, I’m a bit like everyone else.

But the real crazy thing is this wacky numbers game that people like to play in their twenties.  By age 25, I’d like to have…x, y, and z.  And if z never comes around, I’ll go with a or b.  And if a & b end in a bloody disaster, we’ll switch over to j, k, & l.  By 23, I should accomplish: insert accomplishments here.   And of course it seems natural that most of these “things” have to do with getting married and buying houses and graduating from college.  Or if you’re from a small southern town like I am, having babies, too.  Or if you started that in high school, having your third baby.  Or maybe your fourth.

And the thing that leaves me curious (crazy) about it is that in 2010, women now have healthy babies in their 40s.  More people are getting married in their mid-thirties than ever (and those marriages aren’t ending in divorce…).  The average homeowner is 37.8 (I’m going to start measuring my age in decimals, too).  Hell, most people are still financially supported by their parents until 26 these days.  So why, pray tell, do I still feel this enormous pressure to accomplish such acts in the next three years?  Why do I still feel like there is a looming psychotic break in my future as I get closer and closer to thirty, despite the fact that I can’t wait to turn 30 and be done with this miserable decade?

Perhaps it’s the woo of the wedding porn and the mommy blogs.  Sometimes I get so involved in other people’s children and pregnancies that I dream of finding myself totally knocked up.  Like straight-up single white female pregnant from a bad after-school special.  Only to realize what an insane (crazy) idea that is and that really while my roommate is very supportive of my dog, I’m not sure she’d be thrilled with a screaming infant.  Or, better yet, me as an emotional, psychotic wench for 9 months without a husband or boyfriend to berate with my endless request for pickles and krispy kreme donuts.  Plus I can barely pay my bills as it is—a baby?  Really? INTRAWEBS!  You’ve betrayed me!  

And the weddings are also great fun.  I love weddings.  I mean the industry makes me kind of nauseated but the good porn—the Etsy and all the great hipster wedding blogs and the DIY weddings.  It’s enough to make a girl want to post an ad on Craigslist for a husband.  And I’ve been to so many weddings at this point (and been in them, too), that I feel I’ve become a bit of an expert.  I think, when I get married, I’ll have x, y, and z.  Which is really like going to the mall when you’re on your last $45 the week before pay day and trying on Christian Louboutins.   You can’t exactly buy the shoes without the money (hell, without the trust fund).  Nor can you plan the wedding when you haven’t had a successful relationship in years.  So maybe I’ll just go into the wedding planning business.  Or maybe I will post that ad on craigslist.

And the race for careers and degrees is also b-a-n-a-n-a-s.  I’ve been working on a master’s degree for years now, chipping away slowly, three credits at a time, so that I can what? Advance my career?  I even switched programs because I was in a program where people read the book Who Moved My Cheese? and found it inspirational.  I had to withdraw. Now I'm in a program that I like, sometimes, but I question pretty much every week how these people graduated from college.  Sometimes high school. 


But I get degree envy.  I turn mad green and begin a self-depricating parade of all the things I could have done different.  I look at the uber-focused friends of mine with law degrees and PhDs and think, if I hadn’t spent age 22-27 goofing off and “following my heart”, I, too, could have one of those shiny degrees to hang on a wall.  And big fancy letters behind my name.  Although the goofing off from 22-27 has been pretty rad, and I’m not sure my heart would have allowed anything but what happened to have happened.  Even within my profession, I’ve got an awesome resume and great references and incredible experience—but sometimes it feels like I’ve accomplished nothing at all because I haven’t gotten that degree.  I don’t have that shiny thing on the wall and the only thing that comes after my name is usually: Lindsay Johnson, Asshole.

These “things”, these numbers, these expectations are enough to make you crazy in your twenties.  And even with great role models who consistently tell you, "Don't follow a path! Or check off boxes on a list!  Live your life!", you still feel crazy.  Like the center of the universe is in the woods kind of crazy.

Not to mention the fact that you’re a raving lunatic as you try to figure out who you really are in the world—without the crutch of high school, college, and family.  You’re usually so broke you can barely afford to do anything but sit at home and think about how broke you are.  But this time at home, eating ramen & saltines, gives you plenty of time to discover the real you.  And to start thinking about all the things you want to accomplish before you’re 30.  And to discover the show "wife swap" (which can really make you crazy).

And when you get past 27, unmarried, without kids and without letters behind your name, the list of things you thought you'd have accomplished by 30 can start to make you crazy.  And despite your best logic, and the fact that most days you truly are content with your life and lack of "accomplishments", it can start to make you feel really crazy.  Like cat-lady crazy.  And even though you went to a liberated former-women's college and feel that it was pounded into your head that you, as a woman, would never be judged on your merit in society by your ability to cook a roast, iron a shirt, and birth a baby, there's this nagging hormonal thing that seems to happen regardless of all that bookishness and nerdery.  Sometimes you just wanna make a roast and birth a baby, damnit.  And maybe read a book while you wait?

So, tick-tock, goes the clock.  But I refuse to let it make me crazy.  Or maybe it's already made me crazy.  And despite how badly I'd love for my womb to be filled with the spawn of someone wildly inappropriate (and probably twice my age), I'll continue to mother the one beast I'm proud to put in my list of "twenty-something accomplishments".  And I'll try to keep my wedding plans at bay (because nothing's crazier than a single girl with a binder full of wedding ideas).  And I'll keep going to class, taking another 3-6 credits every semester until the letters are at the end of my name.  And I'll try to talk myself out of being crazy about getting older.  But that does involve talking to myself...


And hell, maybe I am actually crazy, and you guys have just been sparing me from the truth all these years.  But HEY! At least I'm self-aware, right?  And I have this blog.  And a dog that smiles when she sleeps (which is crazy).

And those are accomplishments, right?  X, Y, and Z, I'd say.