Rumination

I had my first existential life crisis at 13. I was in the 9th grade and still wearing my favorite beige training bra. In English class, we read the likes of Dostoevsky and Salinger. I was so cool, I thought—chatting with fellow classmates about the meaning of life over sugar cookies. My full-blown anxiety attack was precipitated by the sudden realization that adulthood is so devastating tragic--absent of flights of fancy and childhood innocence. I read about the “phonies” and adult moral ambivalence. Before me stood the full measure of my life—finish school, get a job, get married, have kids and die—and oh yeah, be phony. I wanted to stop life right there, so deathly afraid of inching closer to the divide. But I was just a child.