lately, ive been wondering if 25 is maybe the worst age to be. then i realized the problem is not so much my age as the point in my life that ive reached. i suspect most everyone gets here some time or another, and it doesnt happen at a specific age. im basically at a point when suddenly i dont know who i am anymore. i mean, i know the facts -- 25 yrs old, short, puerto rican, oldest of 3, college educated, loves reading and movies, good listener, a caretaker and people pleaser, etc. but what does all of that even mean?

several times over the last year, i thought i must be having a mid-mid-life crisis, but maybe its really an existential crisis -- who am i? whats important to me? what do i need and want from this life and how am i going to get those things? whats going to make me happy? maybe midlife crises are really just a collection of symptoms of the deeper problem - the existential one, finding out who you are and what this life is meant for.

i was talking to a friend recently about how easy it was in undergrad to churn out papers and how different it is now. my friend pointed out that being a student is no longer a primary part of my identity. and its true. school is becoming a smaller and smaller part of my world right now. i cant even remember the last time i was on campus, over a month at least. i have always loved school, always been good at it. my education has always been the most important thing to me. its taken up a huge chunk of my energy and time for almost all of my life. now i find myself in a position of being done with school. not just in the sense of finishing and graduating (altho thats nearly true) but also in the sense of emotionally being done with it and not wanting to have anything to do with it anymore. and i just dont even know what to do with myself. i feel lost.

logically, the next steps are clear -- i look for a job, work on getting licensed, and start a career. but i cant help but get swept away with disorientation at this huge transition. this thing that has been a huge part of my life for as long as i can remember -- a thing that my identity is tied to, a thing that i came to define my success with -- is done and gone. and it has to be because im completely burned out and turned off by school right now. and someday, i may go on for a phd. but right now, its over. in combination with the ending of a long term relationship, and i feel like the ground has moved out from underneath me. i dont know where i stand anymore. im in unfamiliar, undefined territory and i cant help but feel scared and anxious.

its not like me to not finish something (it is like me to finish at the last minute, but i always finish!), especially when it comes to school. and now i am coming dangerously close to not finishing my master's (and trust me, im not in need of lecturing about the wastefulness and stupidity of that --im fully aware of it). i cant help but wonder how much of this situation has to do with my reluctance to let go of the life i had and the person i was, even though they are already gone.