“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” ~Satchel Paige
I have a question. Am I allowed to ask questions of you? If not then stop me because I have a tendency to go on and on and on and bore the shit out of people then they’re all “OH MY HELL, HB’s mouth actually doesn’t close.”
Moving on…
What were you like when you were 23? You can be anonymous or not. Just wondering for my own little project and because I’m nosy as fuck and well…it just popped into my mind.
65 Comments
What a great question. I was a wreck, and that was only 7 years ago. Well, to sum it up quickly, I was leaving college going home to live with my mom during my parents divorce. I was freaking out living at home after being ‘on my own’ in college for so long. I moved myself to Chicago living on my own, made new friends at work and partied my income away incurring tons of new debts. I worked a contract job, dreaming of moving somewhere else, and drank a TON of vodka tonics. That’s about all I accomplished during the year I was 23. I’m still paying off those debts.
swinging single, drinking my face off, developing a sorta idea about what i wanted to do with my life but clueless on how to get there, living paycheck to paycheck.
1989, Newly in love, still having a lot of sex (those were the days), teaching preschool at my college Alma Mater, paying back student loans. We had a fabulous formal New Years Eve party in our tiny two bedroom house that year. I’m sure there was more, if only I could remember…
At 23 I felt the weight of the world on my shoulders (Thanks a lot, TFA!). It doesn’t feel quite as pressing now.
I spent a lot of time alone, driving through the Texas countryside. Of course, gas was $1.20 a gallon, so it wasn’t much of an extravagance.
I was a 3rd grade teacher and relieved the stress caused by that job via anti-depressants, a lot of pot (hey, I lived next to Mexico), and weekly trips to the beach.
And sometimes after school I’d come home and cry because I had students that no matter how hard I tried just weren’t learning as much as they needed to to get to 4th grade.
I guess that explains the anti-depressants.
I was mostly drunk.
Or at work.
Like now, but without the husband and kids.
I am 23 now.
I graduated from college a year ago…and still looking for a job to use that degree
Still living at home, which sucks terribly…
I’m definitely stuck where I’m at right now, but trying to be patient and stay positive. Hopefully things will get better.
At 23 I was spunky and spontaneous and about to stumble upon the greatest romantic relationship I never dreamed of finding, especially because up until that point I had dated asshole after asshole, so delighted! was I at being treated like proverbial poo, and well, being too immature to demand anything better (of myself, or them).
I’m hoping I’m still spunky and spontaneous two years later. But voila! No more assholes. Life is good.
At 23 I was working a temp job as an office manager in a school. I left that to begin volunteering on a local campaign which gave me a foot in the door to be hired by the legislature and promptly sent off payroll to manage my first campaign. It was wicked hot, I walked in too many parades, then campaign day was super cold and we lost big. Afterwards, I became a press secretary. In December I got engaged. It was a year of big positive changes.
I am only 21 but I graduated from college two years ago, been married for a year and a half, and a homeowner for a year. And I’m currently having a career crisis. I don’t know what I want to do! Should I switch jobs? Go back to school? Should I have kids? Be a stay-at-home mom? Move to a different city? Move out to the country? I hope that by the time I am 23, I will have all of this figured out…
I’m 23 and its been a ridiculously crazy year. I got married in September and was separated by May. In the meantime I quit a job I hated, took one that isn’t exactly what I want (but doesn’t make me miserable), and applied to grad school. I hope I can figure whatever it is that I want by 24…
Lets see… 23… that was a BIG year for me. That year I:
Lived on campus…
Was studying for my masters degree…
Managed to graduate and obtain said degree…
Completed driving classes, passed my test, and obtained a drivers license (hey… I was born and raised in NYC… don’t judge me!)
Got married to my sweetie weetie of 5 years…
Moved to Georgia…
So… at 23… I was a hobo nerd without a car that got married and moved south.
Eventually I got a car. Go me.
At 23…I was getting married. It was 1994…I worked a crappy job…lived in a crappy apartment…and drove a crappy car. I think it was probably the happiest I have been in my life. Very minimal needs. Now, I have 2 kids, a dog, a mortgage, 2 car payments, and a “real life.” You couldn’t have told me then, that I would look at that time fondly, but damn, I do.
23…I had been married for less than a year, lived in a one-bedroom apartment in North Hollywood, and drove a 1974 Maverick.
God, things were simple. We had everything we needed, including free time together. And then 9/11 happened.
Was I doing what I loved? No. It took me until age 28 to figure out that true happiness would entail a graduate degree.
I’m honestly looking forward to 30.
Oh, dude. I am late on this one, but I had to weigh in.
At 23, I was in law school, and I was massively — MASSIVELY — insecure. I was so uncertain as to who I was and who I wanted to be, and I spent a fair amount of time trying ever so hard to be “cool” — which I never have been and never will be, oh dear Lord.
I mean, it was fun, don’t get me wrong, and I remain very close with some of the great peeps I befriended back in early-20s-land; but oh MY, how I went down the wrong path boyfriend-wise. And how obNOXious I must have seemed to some people in my life, what with all the lounge-hopping and black-wearing and Cosmo-sipping and (oh, God) cigar-smoking. What can I say — it was the late ’90s, and Manhattan was booming with dot-commers and venture capitalists, and we all got a little heady.
I am so, so, so very glad I did not have a blog when I was 23, because as it is I look back at my journals and emails from that time and just want to crawl into a hole. I love the person I am now so much more.
Selfish and self destructive, and then secure and happy.
I love not being 23 anymore.