What am I, like 19??

Pic-March 2005

So, once upon a time there was a girl named Geneviève, who lived a very good and very lucky life. She had a nice home, a nice family, nice friends, an all around nice life. She went through school, easily enough (sometimes too easily) and then left home to go to University, like most people did at her age. Now, this is usually the point in the story where Geneviève would say that she "found herself", and that through her experiences in University and the life that goes with it, she came out knowing who she was and what she wanted to do with her life. Unfortunately for this story and its heroine, Geneviève was too quick in thinking that she needed to grow up and subconciously (or conciously, it is unclear) skipped over this part of the journey. No discoveries were made because she truly thought she already knew what she wanted with life, her career, her choices. She was set, ahead of her other early-20s friends and classmates, who she assumed were immature and just couldn't 'get it together'.

And so this façade remained with her throughout her 4 years at University, through her first real heartbreak and then through her eventual meeting with her true love-and future husband, through travels, foolish spending, plans accomplished and plans unfulfilled, until the near present day. Once Geneviève became a 'real' adult, however (out of school, working a 'real' job, married, bills and responsibility), her façade slowly started to show cracks. Things weren't turning out how she had expected, and she started to realize, a bit too slowly and with much malaise, that she didn't really know who she was or what she wanted, that, in fact, her 26-year old priorities had changed from her 19-year old priorities, and that she was slowly sinking into a life she did not want. This wasn't just a fad or trend she was feeling, it was REAL. Small changes were creeping into her life that she did not expect; the strong need to return home, the desire to have children above all else, the realization that a cushy government job wasn't her dream job after all, that she wanted to live simply, creatively and fully, that she wanted to be free of her debts, and others.

And so the story ends here, with a 26-year old who is suddenly faced with the consequences of her arrested development: a quarter-life crisis. Where the story will go, no one knows...but she hopes to find out soon.