The Lonely Twenties/ Walking Through Fear

FEAR + BEER = ?²

Last night I was walking home from a bar with my friend, we'll call her...'Beth.' She had one too many cocktails, and then it happened, the alcohol induced outpour of self-doubt, vulnerability and admittance of wavering confidence. Perfectly natural I think, healthy even.

We are all balls of powerful chemicals that dictate every aspect of our lives. They're subject to ever changing variables, and even if you get them to work correctly with one another, tomorrow is another day. Russ and I once called this the tea pot effect. We are tea pots full of water, over a flame which is always changing size. You can't control the flame, and you can't control how much water you have, you can only decide how and when to let out the steam. Of course, if you don't remove the lid, what is normally a gentle trickle of warm air, it transforms into a violent scream of furious air, racing from the boiling water below.

Many times we don't know the steam is mounting. Other times we don't know how to lift the lid, or how long to hold it open, or that we ever needed to at all. Because of our fast paced lives, and our attempt at appearing confident and in control, we neglect the powerful chemicals in our bodies, allowing them to metastasize and manifest into a meriod of physical and emotional hardships, in this case, drunken outpours.

When Josh and I lived together, a frequent topic of conversation was the lonely twenties. A decade of limbo and uncertainty. We've left the nest, and are on a long, lonely voyage to piece together a nest of our own. The concept of home is subject to rental leases, roommates and a usually inadequate income. Our friends are changing and moving on, our families are growing older, and we have plenty of time to ponder the unknown. Will we be successful? Who will we share our lives with? Will we like who we become? Everything seems possible and impossible. We are forced to confront sobering questions all on our own. Chemicals, daily challenges and big questions are all managed in a clumsy juggling act that we learn as we go.

What's more, these universal factors are compounded by our American dream. American teenagers leave the nest at 18 for college, and with the exception of an image tarnishing stint at mom and dad's, are expected to go off on our own to make something of ourselves. At a younger age than most children in the world, we are expected to spread our wings and find our nest. Perhaps, this is what gives us our ingenuity, our leadership, our entrepreneurialism. It is also however, commonly credited as the cause for the break down of the American family. We are encouraged to achieve our dreams and passions, allowing nothing to stand in our way. Extended family are brushed off as an obligatory annoyance, and within the immediate family, our self-interests force us to grow apart and resent the burden that we impose on one another. When traditionally, the stresses of daily life are evenly dispersed amongst grandmas, aunts, uncles and cousins, the weight is focused on a singular family unit, and more times than not, shatters the marriage and subsequently the previous notion of the family.

All of these factors define the twenty-something experience. We are successors to the most industrious generation in American history, and yet face challenges no other generation on Earth has had to consider. We're at an age of self discovery, questionable acts of promiscuity, excitement and fun. Lots of pressure, lots of reward. Sometimes it's all a little too much, and a few more drunken outpours from all of us is maybe just what we need to relieve the steam and stay sane.