My quarter-life crisis

I feel like I've done a lot of work by simply writing down the title of this post. It must be the pressure of thinking of headlines just before deadline time at work. And finally coming up with a not-so-brilliant one which makes people take off their shoes and aim for your head. Ok, an exaggeration, but you get the idea.
Right, so this quarter-life crisis is the least original thought ever. I think everyone on earth is going through it. Apart from those who're dealing with mid-life crises, of course. Ah well, we'll be there someday too. Depressing thought.
The uncertainty is the worst. It catches you breathless. Stuff you could say without a doubt three years ago now stands on grounds as shaky as one of those earthquake prone zones. If you had imagined your life to be a certain way by this point, and it's not, it's like the rug is being pulled out from under your feet. Slowly. Things I fought for, things I still want to believe and cling on to are eroding. Confusion is all I see. I don't know what to think, what to do, and what to say. That's why I'm not big on talking these days. I've always been the opposite of the social butterfly, but perhaps all this will end with me getting even more firmly ensconsed in my cocoon.
That brings me to the guilt. Because of the above uncertainty, anxiety and feeling of being a fish out of water, struggling to breathe, makes you more than a tad selfish. People you know end up getting hurt. You may say things you don't really mean in a bad way, and decide to shut out the world and those who don't deserve to be blocked. You can't really blame the teen hormones now for the crabbiness. I've started fighting and raking up issues unnecessarily with people I'm rather fond of. I miss the calm me of old. I can't shut out the world forever. I know that, and yet, solitude is what I crave. That's why I love the night. The universe sleeps, so I can stay awake in peace.
And everything gets piled on. you build one block of guilt/worry/panic on top of other till you begin to totter and it starts getting tough to keep your balance. Speaking in non-alcoholic terms here. You sway from side to side, seek advice which provides only temporary solace since ultimately you have to figure it out for yourself.
Maybe we need to stop the madness and look at ourselves from outside of ourselves. Maybe then we'll see what we really are. Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe. Maybe not. My current state of mind leans towards the pessimism.
This weekend, in yet another instance of how much older I feel than my 23 years, I was invited by one of the teachers at the spanish institute to speak to a bunch of kids about life as a sports journalist. From fearing my inability to speak to kids for more than two seconds without losing my patience, I talked for more than an hour. And I had fun. One of the kids actually came to me later and said she thought whatever I spoke about was very nice. Of course, I took it as an opportunity to do some brainwashing too (I may have mentioned something about Liverpool, and how cricket isn't the only sport in the world), but the point is, it made me appreciate what I have. What I am.
And yet, barring those few lucid moments, the feeling of sinking into quicksand surfaces far too often. It gets hard to live with, sometimes. I don't want to wake up with a groan every morning. I don't want to count how many hours are left till the day ends, only to dread the same old things as the next day arrives. Life is just so chockfull of things to do, I don't want to waste it by feeling like a dump all the time.
It can't last forever I know. I just want it to end. Now.