Might Be a Quarter-Life Crisis

I've been off-task this week (blame the free chicken), so here's a 2-for-1 special.

My friend Tabitha has determined that she is going through her quarter-life crisis. Every day of her summer vacation has been a chance for her to gain some new insight or a draw a new conclusion. Tonight we were having a “conversation” via Blackberry Messenger and I told her about a decision I was chewing on. Her response was a long time coming, but when it appeared on my phone, it was mature and wise. I had to ask, “Who ARE you?”

Isn’t that the glorious thing about our mid-20’s? During this season of life, we do the hard work of finding out who we are—separate from our parents and from the identities of groups to which we belonged in school.

I don’t mean to imply that Tabitha wasn’t wise or mature before this summer, but it is clear to me that she is moving forward into adulthood with confidence, swagger, and—a Tabitha MUST—humor.

A short history lesson: I met Tabitha through our church’s adopt-a-college-student ministry. We were paired up in 2005 or 2006. The way the ministry is explained, a family will share a meal with their college student once a month, but Tabitha and I were more likely to go for smoothies and walk through Target. Our friendship continued and when she tired of dorm life and took up temporary residence in my house’s second bedroom. Temporary residence became full-time residence before she began student teaching.

Life with Tabitha was fun, raucous and—very important for roommate dynamics—easy. We watched a lot of reality TV, ate a lot of Taco Bell, and became Wii tennis champions. We laughed a lot at the kind of inside jokes that roommates have that no one else really gets, so I’ll spare you.

It wasn’t all fun and games. Sometimes there were serious conversations about jobs, taxes, and relationships. What I learned about Tabitha from these conversations and from watching her develop as a new teacher is that she doesn’t settle for second-rate. If Tabitha sets her mind to doing something, she will work hard and become great at it. This is why I have no doubt that she will emerge from her quarter-life crisis a confident, competent and comical young woman.

And since I’m on the subject of friends and quarter-life crises, I’m going to go ahead and be Debbie Downer and talk about another friend of mine. You might think of her as the one who got away.

When I was a young buck (doe?) in my mid-20’s, I had a really strong friendship with a girl I’d met in sixth grade. After graduating from college, we were in similar places in our lives—living back home, working with high school youth groups, adjusting to our first jobs.

During this season, I was working out how my faith would influence my life: the choices I would make, the friends I would pursue, the future I would envision. God was doing a lot of work in me and He used this friend of mine to help me along.

We did Bible studies together over the phone because she lived in another town. We used our new cell phones to have long, deep conversations about boys and unmet desires and finding fulfillment. Of course we had fun, too. We would spend Saturdays in Manhattan, seeing Broadway shows, or we’d visit friends in Maryland for a weekend. One summer we even went “on tour” visiting friends throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

Unfortunately, there were signs that this friendship wasn’t healthy, that one of us needed the other a little too much. It seemed like the only way to fix that was by putting some space between us. I can’t remember the last conversation we had. Surely if it had been angry or heated, I would remember it, right? By the time I got to North Carolina, we had lost touch completely.

A while back, I sent her a message on Facebook and we had a good exchange going, until the replies stopped coming. I hate having unfinished business (this is why I don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink), and this friendship is unresolved. Or maybe, like an art-house film, this friendship ended quietly and awkwardly, leaving me wondering what it had been about.