Blood letting
The quarter life crisis
written by Emily on January 31, 2026

The Hollow Em.

The people in the room with me are discussing which NASCAR drivers they support. There are chunky single mothers with elaborate hairstyles, young guys who look my age but already have multiple children, and a woman in her 40's who speaks about any subject you throw out as if it's old hat in her eyes. It's pretty much the exact crowd I was expecting.

We've been sitting here for hours already, drinking lots of coffee and admiring our recycled name badges. This is the second time we've had to go around the room and introduce ourselves. It is the second time I've failed to remember anyone's name. But I know which one loves to trout fish, which one speaks French, which one ran the failed ebay store. I know who supports Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt, and Jeff Gordon.

This is what I wanted. I ran screaming from food service hell. From hair, and clothes, and a life that all smell like meat, into the loving arms of an office. Comfortable chairs. Break rooms. Coffee stations. This is what I wanted. I am 23, and this is what you do when you feel too old for your job, and too inadequate for a career. Savings plans, and paid vacations gave me an almost orgasmic pleasure. A real job. An adult job. A job that doesn't involve ranch dressing. Yes, this is most definitely what I wanted.

Somewhere in the middle of gleefully filling out my benefit plan worksheet, T.S. Eliot crawled into my ear and began screaming that this is the way the world ends. I am settling into adulthood not with a bang, but with a whimper. And I am settling, make no mistake. This is the first time I've taken a job that I'm pretty sure I won't like, simply because it is "lucrative." Goodbye to notions of being a writer. Goodbye to the starving artist archetype that I cling to so desperately. I am selling my soul for a $20 copay.

My future has become incredibly clear. I will stay at this job for many years. I may finally finish school, but I won't quit, because I don't' want to lose my 401k. I am going to marry a loan officer. A guy who doesn't seem very cool, but who has seen at least one Bergman film, which is about as good as I'm going to do around here. We will buy a small boxy house with ugly shutter-less windows lost in a sea of beige vinyl siding. We'll watch Law & Order together. We'll put up a stocking for our dog at Christmas. We will have two kids who are apathetic towards us, and we will be completely bored by 45. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends.

Today I think I actually walked out of my body and looked at myself in the exact moment that I will later realize I gave up all of my dreams for a steady paycheck.

I have to be back there in 8 hours. Life is very long.

Hyperbolic crush.

When I think about you, I think of your arms. They're thin. Not feminine, not fragile, just thin, and you have artist's hands with long fingers. It isn't normally what I'm attracted to. I think of you wrapping those arms around me and I compulsively touch my stomach. I'm not thin at all.

I imagine us having long conversations while we sit outside at tables with umbrellas. The sort of place that would remind me of Paris if there were anything here that reminded me of Paris. And if I'd ever been to Paris to remember it. We drink herbal things out of large round cups and we talk about nothing. Because in real life we're always talking about somethings and those somethings always seem to make me sad.

I hate that you make me sad. You're not supposed to do that. You're my figment, my fable, the thing I keep in the back of my head to be brought out only when I'm staring off at nothing, and need to smile for no reason.

I imagine that your arms are covered in little freckles that I could only see if I were up close. But I'm never up close.

I don't understand this. I don't understand you, or myself, or the game that we're playing. I'm no good at the "go away, but stay close" dance, because I'm too good at both. It hurts my heart to do either. I feel silly. And stupid. And naked, and melodramatic, and insane, and intense, and ridiculous, and over the moon crazy for you and I can't seem to stop feeling any of it. I imagine that you're reading this and it's making you uncomfortable, but I can't seem to stop doing this either.

Fictionalizing you was easier than just talking to you.

Home.

My mother keeps telling me to pack, but I just can't. I try to put my belongings back into boxes, but my limbs feel like bricks. I thought I just finished unpacking a week ago. I've moved eight times since I turned 18. My spirit was restless, I always wanted to be out, alone, staking my own claim. And when I failed, over and over, I wanted to be home. Immediately, home. My bed, my couch, my glasses in the cupboard. My home. I always came home.

They're divorcing. At least, I think they are. Maybe not. Maybe they're just separating. Maybe they want to keep things the same in the official sense, for taxes and car payments and all the reasons that people would stay together after they've run out of real reasons to stay together. Maybe in two months they'll change their minds again, and we'll have to just ignore the wound. Pretend that we don't all assume that the two of you will just up and throw our lives into upheaval again in another couple of years. Or months. The thought of having to go through this again makes me sick to my stomach. But I know I won't do anything about it. I won't even say this to your face. This isn't easier now that I'm older. I still feel like a child, like I'm caught in the middle and being forced to choose. I've been seven years old all January.

They did this once before. I was about to graduate from high school. You know that feeling you get right in your throat when you're about to cry, but you're trying not to? I felt like that for an entire day. I slept with it. Finally, on the way to school the next morning I broke. I sobbed into my steering wheel, while my best friend looked on, unsure of what to do. She wouldn't let me go to school. We drove to a Shoney's for breakfast. The waitress saw my red, swollen face, and kept asking if I was okay. I was fine, but her questions made the tears come back. Afterwards, I took my friend to school and went home. My mother found sitting on the couch when she came home about noon. She asked what I was doing there. I told her that I just. . .wanted to be home. She said okay, and that was the end of it. I blamed her for the entire thing. For fucking everything up. For making me feel the things I felt. For the pained expression I saw on my father's face when he noticed that I'd filled out a college application and checked the "separated" box for their marital status. I blamed her. I've never been any good at seeing her side of the issue. We've never really recovered.

Regardless of what happens to my half-melted idea of a family, the house is gone. They can't afford it. They don't want it. They don't know if they can afford or want each other, but the house is already decided. 18 years we've been here. It's the only home they've ever owned, and they don't even own it outright yet. I could stand blindfolded at one end and find a cereal bowl in the pantry at the other without even stubbing my toe. The bushes on either side of our driveway came up to my 5 year old waist when we moved in, now they tower over all of us, blocking our view of the street when we try to pull out. My bedroom walls still show remnants of the three or four colors it has been over the years, and I can still identify every stain in my carpet.

Every year since my parents got married, my father has given my mother yellow roses. One on their first anniversary, two on their second, and on and on. Last year was their 25^th. The giant spray of roses shadowed most of the table in our entryway. This year I forgot it was their anniversary. They sat at home and watched TV with me all night. When they reminded me what day it was, I said okay and that was the end of it. When I left to get a drink, it occurred to me: no roses. Not a one. That feeling in my throat has been stuck there for a couple of hours now. I can't seem to make it go away.

I can't pack again. I just can't. God.