72 Hour Hold

If you know what that title refers to, and you are under the age of 30, you are one of the growing number of people I know who are familiar with the harsh realities of the Quarter-Life Crisis

It seems some of my girlfriends and I have other things in common besides a disturbing addiction to shoe shopping or an abnormal memory of 80's and 90's pop culture. We have each been legally compelled to stay under psychological medical watch for 72 hours.

Let that one sink in for a minute.

We are each intelligent, driven, relatively nice (some more than others), educated women. All we want to do is find our place in the world. And not one of us was forewarned.

No sage older woman pulled aside as we prepared for college and offered advice similar to the following:

"Look, I know you are excited about your new independence in the world. In college you will meet a lot of new and different people. A person you think is your friend might steal your car and abandon it out of state but..." (fill in some heartwarming, encouraging advice here)

"A man you think is the love of your life might turn out to be a closet homo with an Oedipus complex and a need to put you down because you haven't dropped out of school like he did but..." (insert strong black woman mantra)

"Your first job will seem to confirm to you your ascension to your place in the world. But you might want to consider cursing out that bitch who gives you a hard time, sabotoges your work and suggests that you might want to 'find a place that better fits your needs.'"

"I know that a black man who can hold you spellbound with a conversation spanning Seinfeld to Sinn Fein and has charisma that makes you tingle in all the right places and has that strut that only black men seem to perfect and has no perceptible "issues" seems like incredible good blessing...You feel that knot in the pit of your stomach? That's not love girl! Run!"

"My girlfriends and I needed that talk. Maybe then we would have at least been a little prepared for what was to come. Maybe then we wouldn't have to be held against our will in a mental facility to be compelled to take the time to examine our hearts, secure our deepest beliefs, and embrace our womanly intuition.