Metaphysical Crisis

When I was nineteen years old, going on twenty, I experienced a true metaphysical crisis. It all happened when I was on leave in School holidays. I was going to be twenty in January, and there was something about the transition from nineteen to twenty- from teen to ty- that shocked me into genuine existential panic. I remember thinking life was passing me by so fast. It seemed only yesterday I was in primary. Soon I would be middle aged, facing the middle age crisis, then elderly facing menopause, then dead. And everyone else was aging in hyper speed, too.

Everyone was growing old.

My sense of helplessness was overwhelming. What I wanted to do was pull some massive emergency brake on the universe, like brakes I'd seen on fast racing , motorbikes!! I wanted to call a time out, as I did in my volley matches, to demand everybody just STOP until I could understand everything.

To my horror, here I am turning twenty wishing to be in Neverland with Perter Pan. The closer I watched time, the faster it spun, and the days went by so quickly that in made my head hurt, and at the end of everyday I remember thinking, "Another one gone" and bursting into tears.

The day came! I stomped, cried and hid from all the good wishes....