The midlife crisis of a 20-something-year-old
By: Electra Michaelidou
Tags: Millennials, Non Fiction Story, Authenticity, Mental Health, Career Change

Foreword:

If you ask our Lord and Saviour Google the Search Engine what a midlife crisis is, it will come up with an answer along these lines: a midlife crisis is a conflict between a person’s self-concept and the lives they have led so far. Google will also have you know that midlife crises are typically experienced by adults between the ages of 45 to 65, and can last for several years to even a decade.

*

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a 29-year-old human residing on the tomahawk steak-shaped island of Cyprus. As the average millennial, I experienced my first “midlife crisis” in my early twenties. Picture this: a person of average height and weight, perched up on a cheap kitchen stool, munching on a peach, and dressed in nothing but underwear. Alone. At midnight. On their birthday.

Those who do know me can most likely recall that my mental well-being has been ambushed on the regular by an ensemble of crises since the age of 13.

A crisis connoisseur, if you will.

Unlike midlife crises, those earlier meltdowns did not hinge on regret, lost time or a sense of inauthenticity. Rather, because of certain convictions shared by the masses on this tomahawk steak-shaped island, my pain stemmed from being branded “other.”

Having befriended myself in recent years, my nemesis is no longer my own reflection, but my Boss. Capital-B Boss is not a real, fleshy person, but rather an amalgamation of widely-held beliefs and generally accepted behaviours that I appear to be emotionally allergic to. (We will almost inevitably touch upon the topic of actual bosses sooner or later, as those don’t sit well with me either. Hee-haw.)

Capital-B Boss has the habit of whispering silly statements in my ear, like “corporate jobs are a turn-on” and “don’t even think about getting a mullet” and so on, and, even though I disagree categorically, I follow along.

Capital-B Boss has an unparalleled aptitude for generating batshit ideas.

Capital-B Boss smells.

It is now clear as day that, as I traipse towards the finish line of my twenties, Capital-B Boss should no longer occupy any space in my mind. My journey on this little planet need not entail welcoming my thirties with even more white hairs on my head and antacid prescriptions in my name for the sake of keeping a fairly low-paying, high-stress office job.

“But that is what your parents want,” Capital-B Boss tells me.

“Tant pis.”

Hee-haw.

So, after two years of snail-paced saving up, I now stand at a crossroads. I can finally afford to leave my job and take on an apprenticeship with my favourite local tattoo artist. Am I going for it? Yes. Am I terrified? Absolutely.

Like many individuals, I was inadvertently taught at a young age that certain aspects of myself were not acceptable, by adults who had been spoonfed similar ideas as children. Unlearning such absurd concepts has been a sharp pain between the buttcheeks.

But I am almost there.

Over the next few months, I will be popping on this platform and documenting my journey towards freer self-expression. The aim is to keep an account of my small personal victories, to gain more insight into the mechanisms of the hullabaloo that has been my mind, and to hopefully generate some sort of dialogue on living authentically.

It would be a pleasure to have you tag along.