Is Midnight Yesterday or Today?

They say your teenage years are the most despairing and confusing times of your life, but I beg to differ - this liminal post-graduation/settling into a career phase has been a toughy.

I must confess, within this past year, I practically existed as a full-time professional and a part-time 5th year senior in college. I've worked 40-plus hour weeks, worked out four days a week and still found time to go crazy on the weekends.

It's time to let go of some things.

But I'm starting to notice the awkwardness that comes with being 23. Am I supposed to slow down? Am I supposed to start thinking about marriage? What age am I supposed to have kids? Do I even want kids? Will I ever have to stop?

I saw a meme today (and a thousand times before) that said "I'm at the point in my life where half my friends are getting married and having kids, while the others are too drunk to find their phones." As much as I hate regurgitated Internet posts, that one still hits home. I watch Snapchat stories and see people in their 20s doing absolutely nothing with their lives, granted that could simply be the facets they want to share with the community, but still. It's depressing.

I'm having fun, yes, but the party seems to be dying down; at least the habitual party scene. Friends are settling, while I'm still ready to go.

It sucks being the last one awake.

It sucks hearing "no" after "YOLO" was the mantra to live by. For four years (and little of a fifth), I lived without boundaries, barriers or curfews, but now I have to limit what I do, if not for me, then for my friends. They've got their own lives. They have to be up at 8 a.m. for work on the weekend while I lay on a couch, shaking off the night before, remembering the life I used to have.

My body has been giving me signals that it's either time to grow up or I've simply stop going so hard. I can't sleep past 8:30 a.m. on the weekends. The day after recovery time has increased. I panic about projects for work at 1 a.m. on a Friday night.

I've talked about my "Yes Man" phase and philosophy that gave me the greatest changes in my life, but now I'm heading into a second round of changes. Unfortunately, I don't know what those are yet. I don't have a movie to guide me this time. It will likely entail a stronger focus on fitness, new cultural adventures, more creative aspirations and a decline in travel time. (It's worth noting that for the past three or four months I haven't stayed within the same 100-mile radius for more than five days.)

I don't want to become that quintessential frat boy who can't let go of his glory days. I saw too many 29-year old men trying to party like they were 21 this weekend and it was just embarrassing. However, I don't plan on stopping my antics with my friends. That will never stop. Some of our destruction could be construed as creativity.

And that's what's lacking in my life right now. Creativity. My emotions are manifesting as actions and that doesn't make me happy. I need to go back to capturing my anger/sadness/frustration/jealousy/confusion into something constructive, maybe a song that will last forever and not a dramatic text or tweet that lasts but a second and makes me look like a jackass.

Too young to say no; too arrogant to hear it either.

This is growing up. I've come along way from the angst-filled, drama queen everyone came to know and hate my freshman year. But it's time to cut the passive-aggressive behavior, be more direct and, dare I say it, settle down - not in the sense that I have to stop having fun, but in the sense that I have to concentrate my mind on the hierarchy of things that actually matter.

I'm in need of a life personnel change. I've built a beautiful friend group, but there are some characters that cause more chaos than they do good. There is a never ending fountain of people in this world, why settle on someone who doesn't embody the characteristics you wish to surround yourself with? Why try and make someone appreciate you when they forget who you are a week later? Be with the people who appreciated you completely.

This is my quarter-life crisis

This is me fearing alone time on a weekend. This is me fearing that it was all a dream. This is me fearing letting go of something I built part of my pride upon.

Or maybe this is me devoting my time to becoming a more well-rounded person. Or me falling in Love with new conversations with wonderful people opposed to trying to hold onto the past. Or me preserving and chiseling my body and my name into something that will last a longer time.

Here's to walking through the doorway between two rooms - one full of memories, bad blood and questionable decisions - and into a new room - full of new melodies, deeper conversations and questionable decisions.