Attention Georgetown students and faculty: I don’t like the way I look. Crazy, groundbreaking, and all-around unheard of, I’m sure, but bear with me. Ragging on one’s own physical appearance is practically a human pastime at this point, but it’s time I said my piece. Thankfully, I feel like I’m touching on an aspect that hasn’t been covered to death in Nickelodeon tween shows, or complained about on Tumblr.
I’m self-conscious not because I wish I could change my current appearance, but because when I see myself, it’s hard to reconcile my current countenance with the image I hold in my head.
What’s amazing to me is that every time I look in the mirror, it’s like I’m having an out of body experience. I rarely ever recognize the person looking back, and not because I’m a tortured soul who can’t reconcile who he is, but because I just don’t think of myself as a grown-up. In my mind, I don’t look like someone with facial hair and a slowing metabolism.
Inside my brain, I look like I did when I was 14 years old—wide-eyed, shaggy-haired, gangly as a marionette, and a host of other pre-pubescent adjectives that (rightfully) batter teenage males. Given the social climate millennials are raised in, I’d be willing to bet I’m not the only one whose brain doesn’t have a great point of reference for looks.
I’m 21. When my dad was around this age, he was on track to be married and driving around New England, working full-time. He owned something that cost more than a laptop. He was an adult.
I, on the other hand, am still in school, have no plans for my future whatsoever, and am just trying not to screw up the status quo of my life before things fall apart on their own. We might have been on the earth for the same amount of time, but my Dad was leagues ahead of me in terms of his development. To be honest, I don’t feel like I’ve matured much since I was 14.
Modern psychologists have proposed a proverbial get-out-of-jail-free theory for anyone on the same boat. Supposedly, thanks to the economic and social climates millennials deal with, our development hits a bit of a stumbling block around the time we graduate from college. It used to be that you turned 18 and were immediately considered an adult.
These days, because its been getting harder and harder to find a job, because of a greater focus on grad-school and continuing studies, and because rising housing costs are forcing young people to rely on family, we’re left feeling both dependent and independent.
Many practicing professionals have accommodated the developmental index to include a stage in between the teenage years and adulthood. It’s called early adulthood.
Frankly, I’m feeling like early adulthood sucks right about now.
Looking in the mirror is weird because it reminds me of the difference between where I feel I am in my life and where I look like I am in my life. I’m trying to start a career, but with the supreme level of competition due to an unfriendly economic climate and companies doling out unpaid internships instead of real opportunities, it’s just hard. I’m trying to keep up with my studies, but unpaid internships and extracurriculars intrinsic to getting a job keep getting in the way.
I’d like to build meaningful relationships with people and spend time with friends and family, but I can’t. My head’s buried in a book 95 percent of my week.
On top of that, instead of handling my life like a proverbial “man,” I’m sitting here whining about it in an op-ed, which doesn’t really feel like a terribly adult thing to do.
Now, I know there are a lot of people who probably feel the same way. Everyone’s got their insecurities and their problems—I guess I should keep it all in perspective. But knowing how I should think of myself doesn’t stop the little devil on my shoulder from whispering into my ear when I’m brushing my teeth in the morning.
