If I’m a Kid, You’re a Fetus or Age is just a number. So is your cholesterol level. Numbers Kill.

Generational divides can seem gigantic. Mom and Dad, bless their hearts, have trouble with the “interwebs” while kids these days have abnormally large thumbs due to video game abuse. Old folks remember when cassettes were the newest thing while tiny tots have never heard of a walkman. Baby boomers think back on the first time they saw Snow White in theaters while young schoolchildren today were never exposed to the slaughter of Bambi’s parents. As a millennial, I bridge that gap. I remember when computer screens were in black and green and when digital cameras could hold TEN pictures! (Sorry Aurelia, we didn’t get any shots of your elementary school graduation. The camera was full of puppy pictures.) I can also, regrettably, identify Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez by sight and vocal range. I can kick it with grandpa’s and Bieber tweens alike, no problem.

Why is it then, spending time with people 2-6 years younger than me seems like a trek to Outer Mongolia? College kids, man. A glorious age so very different from any other. Still young enough to not have any real responsibilities or expectations except for not dropping out. Precious souls still unpunched by the brutal fist of reality. Old enough to buy cigarettes, vote, and other adult things. (Keeping it PG).

Bambi and Thumper enjoying some plants. Many college kids enjoy plants as well.

The reason it can be excruciatingly awkward and uncomfortable interacting with college kids is the underlying judgment on both sides. College kids think, “Why is she still hanging out with college kids? Why doesn’t she have a real job?” Millenials think, “Why am I still hanging out with college kids? All they do is get wasted and complain about classes. And why has no one heard of Bambi?” I look at their fresh, yet bleary eyed, faces and think “Enjoy scampering with your woodland friends. The world is a forest, and life is a hunter out for blood.” 

A warning to college students from Disney about life after college: "Bambi, your mother can't be with you anymore."

It’s my (wedding) party and I’ll cry if the napkins aren’t folded to reveal my hidden nature

This engagement ring is appropriate only for women 13 and younger,
which is to say, this is an inappropriate engagement ring.

When my grandmother got married, she was sixteen. When I was sixteen, I went to prom. There are similarities: a fancy dress, lots of pictures, dancing to the YMCA. The critical difference: at the end of a wedding MATRIMONY happens. At the end of prom, matrimony does NOT happen.

Even though society has pushed back the marriage deadline, I am now at the age where marriage is acceptable, encouraged, even expected. Everywhere I turn, friends of mine are sending me save the date magnets with their portraits on them beaming with pre-marital bliss. Engagement parties, bridal showers, bachelorette parties litter my agenda with more frequency than my own dates. Which tells me two things:  that I need to buy more non-holiday wrapping paper and that my own wedding is a long ways away.

In the meantime, I am taking notes. Bridal magazines, Tiffany’s ring generator, and of course actually going to weddings have got me thinking about my big day (as if I haven’t been scheming this since I was 9).  One thing is for sure, I do not want the Eiffel Tower on my engagement ring. The New York Times claims that millenials want their wedding experience to be “distinctive, memorable, and personal.” Read “these kids think they’re so special and creative and that no one else has ever thought of making an Eiffel Tower wedding ring. How gauche.” Believe me, someone else has thought of it before, but they were drunk at the time.

Potential fiancés, when picking out a ring to pop the question with, ask yourself, if this ring were a thousand times bigger, would it resemble a national monument? If the answer is yes, give it back to the sales clerk and try again later.

Yes, it’s true that millenials want meaningful weddings, but I can’t imagine that brides were completely indifferent to particulars pre 1979. Everyone wants a tasteful, fun wedding, but no generation is immune to nuptial faux pas. Or maybe it is just us… 

Millenial Math or Some Pie Charts That Are Not Sweet

If you went to college in the Northeast, chances are your friends don’t live too far away. Using no reliable data whatsoever, I can confidently say 50% of my graduating class is in New York, 30% lives in Boston, and the other 20% has been strewn by fate across the globe helping war-torn villages rebuild and making bank teaching Korean kids to speak English. Which is to say, unless they live in Zimbabwe, chances are I’ll encounter a friend or two from the good ol’ class of ’09.

It was during one of these happy encounters that I was told about another statistic. I was lamenting to my fellow ‘09er that I was, by 1950s standards, an utter failure. No husband, no children, no green bean casserole recipe. I also sighed that I fell drastically short of today’s benchmarks of success as well. I was wallowing in my loserdom feeling that full-time employment was but a pipe dream. And then I realized my very good-natured, bright, kind friend was equally underemployed and unwed and that I had for all intents and purposes called one of my best friends a loser. Oops.

She took it better than I thought and reassured me that I needed to look at the big picture. One third of millenials are in grad school/med school/law school. These lucky so and so’s are similarly delaying adulthood and/or the real world with additional education. The second third majored in Economics and found a corporate finance job that sucks their soul like a slushee. Unless they sold their soul a while ago (likely), in which case they just get rich. And the glorious last third that majored in Communications or Humanities (the study of communicating and being human respectively) or, god forbid, Visual Art or Theater, are the true pioneers of the age. With every latte they sling, with every kid’s booboo they have to bandaid, they get one step closer to finding out what they can do for a living that will pay off their student loans before social security kicks in. If all else fails, there’s always Zimbabwe.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire, Mom and Dad, For Shame

Little League champ today, Weather God tomorrow.

Let me just start this blog by saying I have no right to complain. All in all my life is ok. It could be better, and therein lies the bitter disappointment I taste in the morning.

See, as a lucky millennial, I grew up with amazing parents. Supportive, present, not soccer/stage/hockey mom present, just the regular kind. Although my mother sometimes threatened corporal punishment in another language (extra intimidating), I got through my childhood physically and mentally unscathed. When I acted out, I was sent to my room to “find my star.” I still don’t really know what that means, but it worked. I was a good kid, didn’t do drugs, hung out with smart, dare I say nerdy?, kids. I did all the right things to get into a good college short of saving a beached whale. Despite the gaping hole in the marine rescue part of my application, I was accepted into a good college.

Every step of the way, my parents said I could do anything I wanted to do. That I could get into any school I wanted to. Basically, I was a rock star in average kid’s clothing. When I got into IvyLeague, I had to believe them. So merrily I went along to college, my launch pad to stardom.

Well college was pretty great. So was graduation. The realization that I had a totally useless DOUBLE major, however, was doubly disconcerting. I was rejected from the grad schools that me and all of humanity applied to that year. Teach for America dealt me a mean slap in the face too, but encouraged me to apply next year. My parents had betrayed me!

And now, what’s become of that golden child? Has her self-esteemed withered to the size and texture of a raisin? No. Has she set more reasonable goals? Why yes! She still has visions of stardom (albeit in an entirely different field) and even a few moons in her sights. Until she reaches them, she’ll be working three part time jobs, taking five classes, and telling you all about it.

Did your parents tell you that you were all that and a bag of chips, so to speak? Leave a comment, tell me about it.