Last week, my husband and I made a trip down to Charlottesville to my alma mater, the University of Virginia (UVA), with our six month old daughter, Ava. It was honestly one of the happiest days of my life, walking through the university grounds, showing my college where I had gained a priceless education with my baby.
As I strolled through the shadows of my twenties still hanging around the edges of the iconic pillars and columns of Jefferson’s village, a wave of nostalgia came over me, as it often does when I return to UVA, one of the few places I miss and long for even while I am there.
I thought about who I was back then, who I am now, and who I thought I would be. I found myself measuring my accomplishments while telling stories to Ava about who her mother was before she and I had met.
Nostalgia: Who Are You Today vs Who You Thought You Would Be? Image Credit: Anushay Hossain
I stopped to show her the leaves on my favorite tree, the one right by the University chapel that bursts out in yellow splendor every year when Autumn arrives, and I found myself in panic mode. “Had I accomplished what I thought I would by 32? Am I who I should be, who I wanted to be, who I thought I would be?”
I shocked myself with not only the level of my sudden explosion of insecurities and doubts, but also with the fact that I was having this conversation with myself again.
Seven years ago when I was twenty five, I had a full on mini-breakdown over my lack of accomplishments. I had just completed my MA program, was almost 30 years old, and gasp, I had not written the book I was supposed to write, I had no city to call a home, did not own a home, and could not have been more lost or confused. I descended into a panic attack that lasted for months. Later I discovered this kind of “breakdown” was so common with my generation, it was dubbed the “Quarter Life Crisis.”
Sharing UVA With My Daughter, One of the Best Days of My Life. Image Credit: Shayan Pahlevani.
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