For my parents.

I FUCKING LOVE YOU!

FUCK!

The day I turned twenty, everything changed and the world drained of its color. A dark storm cloud settled atop my head, raining down furiously every time I attempted to get out of bed. I was taunted by melancholy music, which attacked me from every direction, crawling into my ears and burrowing into the folds of my cerebral cortex. I soldiered on, the odious orchestra delving deeper into the dungeon of my being until it invaded my heart.

Okay. Well. Not really. It wasn’t (completely) like that. Maybe I wasn’t outfitted with my own personal rain cloud, but something weird was at play. I had entered into uncharted territory. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning. Or at least in the same general area as where the beginning would be if I were any good at reflecting upon life in a super-linear fashion.

Around the time I began my junior year in college, I began hearing a lot of cautionary tales from friends who were older than I and already out. All of them got the same kind of faraway look in their eyes as they warned me about the impending hopelessness and depression that would inevitably wreak havoc upon my life.

“You’re so lucky that you’re still in school,” they’d say wistfully, with just a hint of contempt. Then the tone of the conversation would shift, and it was as if these friends and I were on a sinking ship in remote and stormy waters in the Pacific and there was only one more seat on the rescue boat and they were dying of cholera and we had already eaten the other crew members and it began to make sense for me to leave them and save myself. With voices that practically leaped out of their throats and gripped my forearm like the claws of a panther, they would say, “STAY IN SCHOOL AS LONG AS YOU CAN.”

However, since I was still a raging optimist at that point, the claws felt more like the playful tickle of a kitten’s paws. “Okay, okay, my little kitty-witty,” I’d say in a baby voice, “Let’s not get too excited. Mommy’s going to be just fine.”

Clearly I assumed that these harrowing accounts of the slings and arrows of the real world did not apply to me. The chances of me waking up with a missing kidney in a bathtub full of ice seemed more likely than the idea of being severely unhappy after I graduated.

Alas, fast-forwarding about a year, I found myself saying horrifyingly similar phrases to people who were maybe six months younger than I, just like some clichéd afterschool special wherein the one belief that the protagonist decries becomes the bane of her existence. “APPRECIATE YOUR TIME IN COLLEGE! ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!” I’d bellow to anyone standing within ten feet of me.

How did this happen?? How did I join the ranks of the postcollege disenchanted? Perhaps it came down to my tragic character flaw, the inability to live in the moment. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be in high school. When I was in high school, I wanted to be in college. When I was in college, I wanted to be starting my career. Once I got there, I just wanted to get beyond Phase I: The Shitty Years, and on to Phase II: When All My Dreams Come True ASAP. I could have sworn that during freshman orientation the dean had said that as soon as we got our diplomas, a genie would appear and grant infinite wishes. Although now that I think of it, I may have misheard her because I was texting. Plus, I thought that having my BFA would eliminate the necessity of continuing to pay any more dues because they would have been paid in full by my spending almost my entire life thus far as a student. Now I have to consider that maybe that guy in the subway who always yells, “College is a lie!” knows what he’s talking about.

Yes, boys and girls, I’ve come to see that everything I thought I knew about Phase II was wrong. Very wrong. Oh, how wrong I was. Have I mentioned that I had some misconceptions about Phase II?

I had even graduated a semester early so I could get a head start on (hating) my life! At that point, I felt completely ready to pick up my all-access pass to Easy Street. Right out of the gate, it seemed like I had a bright future ahead of me! I had a steady job with flexible hours (as a coat check girl, getting paid only in tips), a cool St. Marks Place apartment (with a bedroom ten inches larger than my bed on all sides and inhabited by mice who were evidently genetically resistant to poison), an exciting love life (hooking up with someone who was evidently genetically resistant to a relationship), a kick-ass social life (where no one had time for each other because they were so busy going batshit crazy with their own lives), and a shimmering, glimmering dream: “I am going to be an actor!” (in a tampon commercial… if I’m really lucky).

Sounds totes awesome, right? In no short order, the fantasy was beginning to crumble all around me, and I was sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand of post-collegiate life. How had I been able to romanticize the real world right up to the moment I was living in it?

Maybe part of the problem was that I tended to have a hard time thinking in realistic terms. For example, I had always regarded Los Angeles as a concept, a slide show of images from pop culture: palm trees, fake boobs, people with frightening tans. When I finally visited LA for the first time last year, I had to concede that LA actually existed; people really did live there. Similarly, it took me a long time to recognize that being in my twenties had also existed as a concept that didn’t match up with reality. I’m not sure if I expected Mayor Bloomberg to give me a key to the city (seriously, do those get you into every single apartment? Just asking…for a friend.), but I certainly didn’t expect to have Mr. Guinness himself letting me know that I had broken the world record for Most Meltdowns in a Single Week.

The truth is that graduating from college is just like any other landmark rite of passage, like, say, losing one’s virginity. In anticipation of that event, we can only hypothesize based on preliminary “bases” run, what friends tell us/lie about, and what we see in movies like Ernest Goes to Camp and Interview with a Vampire. Then, when it actually happens, isn’t it usually just the simple awareness of being in that moment? It isn’t so scary or crazy, it just kind of is. “So…I am having sex now.” When it happened to me I certainly felt more complete and adult from the experience, but it’s not like I suddenly got any superpowers, like I could communicate with the dead (which would have been nifty, although after a week or so, it would have probably become quite stressful).

However, what I anticipated happening to me when I graduated from college was the equivalent of becoming the Pink Power Ranger (Viva l’Amy Jo Johnson!). I imagined that even the most basic of tasks, like walking down a flight of stairs, would be exhilarating and joyous because I had a college degree! Instead, I found out that the accumulated impressions from past experiences, others’ reports, and media representations did not fully prepare me for the WTF-ness of actually living it. “So…I’m in my twenties now.” And it really sucks.

Dealing with the all the anti-fanfare was crowding the space in my brain. I hated that almost every conversation I had was either a defensive explanation of my life or a bland packaged script; both were devices to prove to whomever I was addressing that I had everything under control. Which I most definitely did not. I also couldn’t tell if I was overreacting. Was everyone else pleased as punch with their twenties? Was I insane for experiencing it this way? Did my mother obsessively read The Bell Jar when I was in utero? WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME?

I found that one of the only things that kept me sane was talking to people who were going through the same thing. What a relief to discover that most of the people I knew were also dealing with the waking fever dream of unsatisfactory apartment/job/friends/love/life/career goals. Everyone had something to complain about, and we engaged in a lot of kvetching sessions.

Having gone to drama school, where it’s a prerequi- site to have taken Overanalyzing 101 and to carry a Moleskine notebook everywhere, I found myself notating the issues my friends and I discussed, whether they were epiphanies or regrets or explanations or questions. Documenting my problems allowed me to see the sublime in the disappointing.

Thus, Fuck! I’m in My Twenties was hatched. I had originally planned on only sharing it with friends, but shortly after I put it online, it took on a life of its own, and has brought us to this moment: you holding this book in your hands! This isn’t a “how-to” book or a “how-not-to” book, it’s more of a “how do I deal with my life without wanting to stab myself in the eyes with icicles?” book.

Now some of you may say, “Just get over it, Emma. Nobody cares.” To those people, I say, “OH, REALLY? IS THAT SO?” I mean, sure, maybe you have a point. And maybe I need to work on wittier retorts. Perhaps you’re one of those people who is (or was) perfectly content in your twenties. If so, FUCK YOU! I mean, um, CONGRATS, but bro, have some compassion for those of us who have not reached the enlightenment phase yet. What are you, an animal?!

I don’t think anyone has truly “figured out” being in his or her twenties until, at the very least, they’re in their thirties and have reached the analysis/justification phase of what has transpired over the previous decade. Or perhaps it’s not that way at all, and my thirties will be another elusive concept that I won’t have mastered until I’m forty. I haven’t gotten very far at all imagining what my thirties will be like, except for owning a really nice desk lamp. My poorly constructed idea definitely needs to be fleshed out, and it may take quite a bit of time because right now most of my brain is under construction.

Now for the cheesy part. At the beginning of college I attended a talk given by Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater in New York City. He said, “As artists, we make contracts to care about each other’s work.” At the time I was awestruck to hear that part of being an artist is supporting other artists, that community is inextricably linked with individual creative work. As human beings, we also must make contracts to give a shit about each other. It’s easy to be selfish in your twenties because you have to be concerned with your own life and taking the right steps toward being a real adult, but you have to find a balance between blazing your own trail and being there for your friends. You make it harder for yourself if you only care about yourself.

Also, not to get all nouveau-hippie on you, but there is a reason that in a yoga class you are constantly reminded to keep breathing. Breathing itself may be an involuntary action, but when your body encounters something difficult, you start to hold your breath. The same thing is true in life. Sometimes, until it is pointed out, you forget to fully breathe. That is why we need to remind ourselves and our friends to support each other, keep breathing, and to enjoy the fuck out of our young lives!

I remain on my quest to make sense of it all even if everything I say now will embarrass me once I’m out of my twenties. I hope that my attempt to figure it out will remind all of you that you’re not alone.

Emma Koenig is a New York based actor/singer/writer and the creator of fuckiminmy20s.tumblr.com. She is still waiting for her BFA to pay for itself.

Copyright © 2012 by Emma Koenig.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-1916-8 (ebook)

The Library of Congress has previously cataloged this title as follows:

Koenig, Emma.

F*CK! : I’m in my twenties / Emma Koenig.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4521-1053-0

1. Young adults--Humor. 2. Adulthood--Humor. I. Title.

PN6231.A26K64 2012

818’.602--dc23

2012006877

ISBN: 978-1-4521-1053-0

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