The Age Divide

I'm twentysomething. I'm holding onto that, no matter whether age ain't nothin' but a numbah or youth is prized above all else. But when you're twentysomething and not doing exactly what you love but a whole bunch of little things that kind of surround that thing that you knew you wanted to do above all else at 16 years old, well, sometimes time seems limited.

I look good on paper. I've worked hard, I've struggled, and I've done all those cliche Midwesterner-turned-New Yorker things. ("Oh, but Mr. Pendleton! I thought we were just friends! And don't you have a wife? Please put your hands back in your pockets!" Yeah. Me. Sad, but me.) But I haven't made it. I don't feel I have. Or maybe I have, and I just don't know it. Maybe I'll look back and say, "Damn, girl. You had it so good, and you didn't even know it at the time."

Maybe no one really "makes it" in New York. I'm forming a personal theory that the Achievement Demons feed on New York life. They whisper in your ear after you've received a promotion or scored a big account or landed an assignment you dig. They say, "It's not enough. You should do more. Look at everyone else around you: They're all doing more. And they're all younger than you."

Maybe it will never be enough. Maybe nothing in any aspect of New York life -- work, apartment, boyfriend/girlfriend, life, income, achievements -- will ever be enough.