Extreme Makeover: Quarter Life Crisis Edition

My outlook on the real world during my long-lost university days was very strange, to say the least.

Punch drunk on ivory-tower syllabi filled with ancient Greek philosophers, I looked out at the “real world” with wide-eyed despair. 

I truly believed that that the future entailed inevitable corporate droll / uninspiring monotony. College = my last chance at true bliss! 

In contrast, post-college life = banal, blah, droll. 0% eudaimonia, 0 people that cared to discuss the conceptual complexities of eudaimonia, and (DUH) 0 folks that gave a fuck either way.

OHHH THE HUMANITY.

Yet the true nature of this early-20s reality has proven to be entirely different. You see, it’s not that ~real world life~ is uninspiring. It’s actually quite the opposite: TOO inspirational. 

Unexpected dramas at every corner! Hormones a’ragin’! Hearts dramatically uncaged!!

For me, these 2 post-collegiate years have included great physical & mental traumas, multiple deaths, a series of unfortunate illnesses, and many instances of heartbreak. In short: it is really fun being Ukrainian. REAL ###FUN.

I've grown a few new layers of skin these years, it is true. And in the process I have come to one single conclusion: y’all, I have changed.

But I like this change! It feels like maturity...?

I mean, I am a phoenix from the yellow-fever flames! 

I am a majestic, refined-sugar-addicted butterfly emerging from a post-collegiate chrysalis! 

& GODDAMNIT—I MUST REFLECT THIS INTERNAL CHANGE EXTERNALLY!!!

If you are a cis-gendered, liberal-arts-educated millennial in the United States, $10 says that you yourself have encountered this odd realization recently: I mean, young adulthood, it's a thing. 

And another $10 says that you have decided the best course of action is singular, stoic, and clear: !!! LIFE-MAKEOVER TIME !!! 

Mission statement: //// IF YOU CHANGE YOUR LOOK GIRLFRAN /// THEN YOU WILL CHANGE YOURSELF /// THEN EVERYTHING WILL MAGICALLY CHANGE FOR THE BETTER ///.

Interestingly, as I began to speak of my life-makeover plans with other people my age, I noted some trends.

Most of my male friends responded something like, “Um.. how does changing your hair / clothes radically shift your identity again?” 

One word for y’all dudes: SIMPLETONS.

Alsoooo…. you may be correct. Nevertheless: STFU.

My female friends reacted in the opposite manner: with the purest of enthusiasm. 

In fact, many of my estrogen-peak-suffering female compatriots revealed to me that—ohwhattayaknow—they were also planning a !!!!!!!dramatic physical transformation!!!!!!, for similar quarter-life-crisis-related reasons. Oh, this sweet world.

I guess when life gives you lemons, 21st century femalez utilize those lemons to dye their hair and brows and lifeblood.

For those who are interested, my makeover strategy reads as follows:

Stage 1:  R.I.P. Kooky Sweater Girl.

Stage 2: Keeping up with the Kardashians

Stage 3: Needle-fear BE DAMNED.

Stage 4: (((Glassy lassy)))

I will be detailing each stage for your reading-pleasure.

Embark on this journey with me, friends. It’s pretty superficial; and yet (I feel) oddly poignant. 

I’m not a girl, not yet a woman, k? K.