The Quarter Life Crisis? Blame Pluto.
The picture above is Lindsay Lohan papped in the middle of her Pluto conjunct Neptune transit. Note the book. The Quarter-Life Crisis Is simple. Blame Pluto.
It does not get as much attention as Saturn Return, but Pluto conjunct Neptune in your mid-20s is hell. Now and then, the Quarter Life Crisis comes back into fashion as an issue to be debated, media-frenzied, and pitch as a book project et al.
But astrologically it happens to everyone at about the age of 24 to 25. It’s as cyclical as Saturn Returns, the Uranus Opposition, Chiron Return, and Uranus Return. I.e., it happens to everyone and is a rite of passage.
Like any Pluto transit, it’s relatively more hellish to the degree to which you resist it. It’s the transit that prompted the walk Cheryl Strayed documents in Wild. AKA when you take Pluto into the wilderness with you.
Weirder Than Saturn Return
Neptune is your dreams, spiritual ideals, and most glowing sense of yourself and associated prospects. And you’re at the age where your Neptunian fantasies have been mostly unchecked. You can fervently believe that any romance you feel strongly about is meant to be. It’s also your ability to consume Space Dust or Blue Devil Hoochie Juice and look fantastic the morning after. High vibe Human Growth Hormone helps you emerge as a hot smooth-legged phoenix from surreal dramas.
Without realizing it consciously, you glide around with youth privilege, Saturn Return and its associated tax, dentistry, and heavy responsibilities seem eons away. It’s fantastic.
And then Uncle Pluto hits the town. Your heart, naivety, aspirations, or bank balance feel pulverized. You’re suddenly aware that there are younger people than you and they’re turning up in turf you owned. What are they? Twelve? Whatever happens, it deepens your consciousness. You go through some version of hell – toxic friends, an ugly break-up, having to distance yourself from an abusive family member, a career ground-and-pound – but emerge stronger.
It’s Comeback Astrology – Phoenix Training
So whether you’re doing Pluto-Neptune right now or recall it, what do you think?
Like every Pluto scenario, the Quarter-Life Crisis is forced growth. But the more you get down with it, the better it goes. How do you get down with it? You surrender your delusions lightly, relinquishing your grip on expired dreams. If your vocational confidence is shaken, you turn the situation into a soon-to-be comeback.
Often it feels as if the character you thought of as “you” is burning up or has no place anywhere. But what if that version of yourself was far more shallow and limiting than the character locked inside? And everything that goes down with your Quarter-Life Crisis is breaking down barriers to liberating that person?
It is Phoenix Training. Even if you are an Outer Planet person by birth and are well acquainted with Plutonic journeys, the Pluto conjunct Neptune trip transforms your scene. You see things as they are as well as where people and dynamics are stifling your authenticity. You can’t tolerate them anymore, and it would be spiritually dangerous to try.
I’m glad I stumbled on this article too. Those years were harder than my saturn return (I’m 30 now). I was fired twice from the same office, terrible love relationships including one awful break-up. Looking back it was a sign that I was in the wrong field and then I stayed in that field entirely during my late 20s. I had successfully resisted the transit but I stagnated in terms of my life. Now I think, at what price? Now I am attempting a career change during my saturn return and I haven’t quite settled on anything yet since I’m deciding between two options.
No regrets of course, just seeing everything in hindsight quite clearly.
Neptune is in the fourth house in sag square jupiter in virgo, pluto conjunct sun in libra in the second house.
I’m soooooo happy for bumping into this article, thank you so much ;o) I’ve been talkin’ for months now how I feel old & lost & perspectiveless & how it feels like classic middle life crisis, which is strange since I’ll be 25 on summer solistice….I’m always opssesed with naming my feelings and putting them into spiritual perspective (scorpio asc may be the cause?)…this helped me a lot ;o)
namaste
Mystic – thank you so much for this post.
I turned 25 in Feb, and this is how I have been feeling for a while now. I have been dragging through uni for 7 seven years now trying to figure out what to do with my life! Hopefully all this forced growth will see my B.A. done at the end of the year! I have also just found out I’m pre-diabetic, and man, was that a wake up call. I played rep hockey and tennis at school, and after 5 years out I’m getting back into it………yes Pluto is doing a nice big criss cross over my Neptune at 4 deg Cap, with it polarising it again in September! Hope something good comes out of all this 🙁
I had a major epiphany when reading this post Mystic. I just never realised that’s why my later teens and twenties were so vile.
I have Neptune retrograde in Sag in the 8th house. I’m not terribly cogent on that but I assume it’s why I felt so damn awful during the Pluto in Sag years?.
I just felt almost like I wasn’t really even there! Flailing about, dropped out of uni, crappy jobs, awful, awful, awful.
Sweetie, it was me that said i thought i would only need a manicure
kit not a tool kit!
Was at the hardware just before easter to buy things i needed to put
up a hanging basket for large hoya plant. It was hell trying to work out
what was needed, chain, screws, basket, until i spat the dummy i was
so embarrassed. The man behind me at check-out hearing my questions
asked ‘Do you have a hammer, do you have a nail’? Blushingly, i repied
‘I do have THAT, thanks’.
Now can’t lift it into position, have blisters and a blood blister on hands &
will probab;y have to give a 6 pack of beer to the plumber across street
to help. Congrats on your operation, you must be proud of yourself 🙂
Haha, I’ll be 23 on July 17th. =)
This is currently happening, esp with the retrograde back to exact conjunction.
I love it. It has done wonders for me. Natally, I already have a LOT of pluto / neptune action, so this dynamic has been occurring since day 1. All of the re-evaluation of dreams has already been prepared for, and though there were a few snags of revelation (primarily because I couldn’t let go of an old response to a new problem)…I have really come into my own.
The best thing about this transit is the ability to balance deep instincts and fluid desires. Lately, more than in the past, I have been able to focus on both fundamental needs getting addressed, and indulging my wants.
Happy mediums are the key to surviving it. Let go of the unrealistic. Appraise things for what they are, not what you want them to be. Determine your best course of action based on what you have going for you. Once you have something to show for it, reward yourself, and do Neptune. I at least have been 10x more at peace with drinking the champagne in the bathtub after spiritual rites of choice to celebrate what’s been accomplished.
Ugh. That explains a lot about why I have been internally turmoiled…. and externally too. I was wondering how it was possible for a not quite 24 year old to feel THIS jaded.
But just looking at my chart now, and thinking about how Pluto is retrograde, and how the two planets are 1 degree apart…. does this mean it’s going to be two-fold, when it turns back ’round and re-traces? I really dunno that I want to feel all shitty like this for twice the length of time.
I seriously feel like I need guidance for this. I can’t even explain how I feel everyday. I may look a mountain on the outside, but secretly I’m a volcano.
I mentally cannot figure out how to placate the masses of irrational thoughts that go through my head. It’s impossible. Grrrr.
If I think of Pluto as a stick of dynamite blowing me up, it’s like Neptune is all that dust wafting about waiting to settle, but then another stick gets thrown in for extra measure, and so there’s more dust….. sometimes I feel like I’m the one throwing the additional dynamite at myself because I’m too scared to see what’s left behind when the dust finally settles.
It’s weird I was just thinking about this yesterday, that I know quarter life crisis means now (Born in June of ’85). I’m pretty sure it’s hitting me full force right now.
After many years of pretty much constant indulgence in low low LOW Neptunian tendencies, Pluto came and kicked my ass at 24. I’m still dealing with the backlash two years later – my brain and body still haven’t recovered, and I’m not sure that they ever will. I never realised what the astrological catalyst was, good to know. Thanks Mystic 🙂
So interesting that you would write this! Thank you so much for explaining a boatload of insanity – my boyfriend is going through it right now. His twenty fifth bday is April 25. This last weekend was very much Pluto schizo; having Pluto on my Saggie sun for eternity, I know the symptoms. He’s been really hard on himself, even down.
So interesting that you would write this! Thank you so much for explaining a boatload of insanity – my boyfriend is going through it right now. His twenty fifth bday is April 25. This last weekend was very much Pluto schizo; having Pluto on my Saggie sun for eternity, I know the symptoms.
Not sure whether this is happening to me right now/recently. I was born ’89. I always seem to experience things early though, I’m hoping so because I don’t see how I could take another round of relationship horror in another 2-3 years.
In fact I found this transit more significant than my Saturn return.
🙂 totally agreed.
Perfect description of what happened to me at 25. Astrology is such a helpful paradigm (understatement) – helps make sense of life’s trials/growth.
Incredible summary MM. Miost helpful, many thanks.
… and now it all makes sense!…. I’m 44 now, but just before my 25th birthday i broke up from an 8yr relationship. It broke my heart and resulted in years of depression, sadness and love issues. The upside was that 9mths later i was on a jet plane to Europe where i backpacked for 18mths. I had some of the best times of my life and am forever grateful that i was able to experience it. I’ve always been quite philosophical about the outcomes of my life experiences to date, but it is only now reading the Quarter Life Crisis that i know that it all now gives such resolution and clarity…. Thanks MM, greatly appreciated 🙂
just turned 24 in february.
the biggest lesson i have learned in the past 6 months is learning to separate my ego from my work. make the $$$ first then focus on my ego-centered/&more spiritually driven goals so i have freedom.
Interesting!
I had a spate of sleazy lover addictions… the good old days of falling for rock stars and/or celebrities, people who cannot (did not) return my hopes of love in the way I wanted.
I’m Neptune natal 7th (and also Uranus in the 7th, which I’ve dealt with FOR the past 24 years) so it didn’t come as too much of a shock!!
Yup, exact timing – at 25 went to uni and left behind good-time-surfer cool crowd. I was feeling really empty and yearning for something i didn’t know… Lonely for a while but employed Saturngirl and came up with honours degree at Saturn return. Best thing i ever did.
I am 22 and I have Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, Jupiter and Neptune conjunct their positions when I was born, and the same is with Chiron and True node in my progressed chart. I don’t really understand that much about astrology but I have been feeling fuqstatic recently… I am scared of what is to come
Wow, that’s some stellium.
Where?
Does it makes aspects to personal planets/points (sun through to mars, ascendent and midheaven)?
Duh, I read that wrong I think.
Though now I’m even more confused cause you can’t be having ‘returns’ of all those planets.
?
My mistake … I clicked on Natal chart and progressions on astro.com instead of Natal, transits and progressions… I also thought it was a bit too much 😀 My mistake. Turns out that I am only having Pluto-Neptune thing now and it’s only in the beginning. But I had some tough time these months. I need a time accelerator !
About that age got married and went to a lot of Dead shows. Ended up moving to the sticks where we knew noone, poor-but young, in love and spending so much time exploring the woods and beautiful river bluffs we didn’t care~
Had my 1st child at 23 was struggling as a single parenthood in dire poverty & post natal depression, around 24/25 realised what I had no support from anywhere. NO family, his father, no one. Just me and my child. We had nothing not even a bed each. Urgh!!! Fuq it was hard but we survived it. It was definitely a time of forced growth.
I’m going through this and it all resonates.
Pluto is right on my neptune in the 2h opposite mercury in cancer in the 9
It’s not fun and definitely “forced growth”!
My bubble definitely burst.
My parents couldn’t afford my education anymore, so I had to drop out of college, move back home, and get a job to live and pay the last semester I attended (to get my documents back). I also left behind most of my belongings and my roommates sold them to a second hand shop (with my permission, but still, it hurt to lose some stuff with sentimental value) so I have only the necessary now.
Now I know that i took for granted many things and that I’m not entitled to sh!t, and I’m learning to set priorities. Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, feel like a failure and totally lost, but i know i have to be mature, be grateful for what i do have, and move on.
I’m actually in Mexico, and the GFC did hit us hard. I never thought about it this way, though I know we’re not the only people affected by this. It really felt personal!
I’ll look more into the 2nd and the 9th house
Thanks for giving me a fresh perspective and your kind words 🙂
My Aquarius friend said he was having a mid-life crisis we’re both 25 and I was thinking the same damn… thing. Wow.
Wow. Very true for me right now. “Forced Growth” INDEED. @ this point in my life I do feel life a quarter life crisis; I am 25. I am absolutely lost!!The only thing I am holding on is my faith in The Most High. This actually brought a smile to my face.
3/4 crisis? Pluto trining Uranus is . . . er nice and soon doing same to itself should be interesting. And hmmm happening for more than just me the penny eventually drops, so not so spes perhaps. Pluto squaring my natal Venus however, I am taking as deeply personal.
At 24 I came to Australia from the UK for a holiday, morphed from Ms Stuffy-Pants into someone quite different – independent, revolutionary, women’s libber. I’ve often looked back at that time and wondered what the hell hit me, now I know 😛 Oh, and 39 years later I’m still in Oz!
Hmm.. I have almost exactly the opposite problem. I have Neptune transiting in opposition to my natal Pluto. It was exact just a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sure what this means, but it has to be something different than a Pluto-Neptune conjunction (that IS what Mystic is talking about, isn’t it?) I’m not sure what to make of that, but I keep getting an automated horoscope that says “you are attracted to the occult now, but unable to do anything practical with it. Well, isn’t that kind of a given, that this stuff has no tangible, practical vale? It is spiritual, not physical or practical.
As is generally the case with me, I don’t do only one outer planet transit at a time. Pluto conjunct Neptune occured after neptune transit over descendant and opp mars, and just before Saturn started stomping over all of my taurus stuff.
In that period I got very ill, packed up my stuff and went travelling and ended up living somewhere else for a while with some people who remain in my life. I think the Pluto/Neptune bit was probably when I got the impetus I needed to escape (I mean go travel).
Neptune in Sagg fittingly.
Our moons are trine. And yours is tightly conjunct my north node and loosely conjunct my IC. Oh and in my 3rd.
I am good at predicting who is on the phone and specific people who I will run into at the shops.
Re other question. Neptune in the 5th. But at same time, Saturn (ruler of my 6th) was conjunct my SN and Jupiter, and sextile my moon (and thus inconjunct my Neptune).
Heriditary disease. From my mother, who has a Capricorn moon!
One last piece of shit to deal with before I ran away really, and arguably brought on by a few years of neptuning to escape things brought on by Pluto in late Scorp (and my mother).
And whilst waiting for the iPhone to crash, I realised my neptune is opposite my mothers sun (and thus my moon square it)
Really I’m quite fixed. Only mutable things are sun, moon and Pluto
All my Taurus stuff plus sun prob in your 12th too.
Auto immune diseases are a good place to start, though hard to test for.
Not Pluto actually. Neptune. Funny.
Ha, yes, my POF, and Jupiter are at 13 cow, SN at 12.
Jupiter in Taurus is what I’m really waiting for. Though merc, Venus, mars all kinda conjunct around my birthday should be fun.
I really don’t get sometimes how all the fixed/mutable work together, and even less how other people read it. Even more difficult when technologically mediated.
And my SN. So I’ll already know exactly what it is needs done to be successful!
(insert evil cackle that I can’t spell right)
Neptune in Sagg here too, and in the 12th. Always feel most alive and excited by life when I’m traveling and get depressed when I’ve been in the same place for too long. I think my Virgo Moon actually comes out more when it’s working with Neptune in Sagg because I love making lists of what to pack, things to buy, constructing itineraries and being an obsessed clock watcher in regard to arrival and departure times…traits that I strangely don’t exhibit in my ordinary non-traveling life!
Interesting, because this is happening to me right now. Pluto is now opposing my Mercury-Neptune opposition…and I don’t feel much of a difference. Maybe because its retro now? Or because pluto trines this opposition in my natal chart so it feels the same, only a little more intense? And I’ve heard of (and seen) this transit making athiests or believers. The actual conjunction is taking place in my 12th and opposing my Mercury in the 6th.
I can say this: I’m about to get my degree in July, though I’m wondering if it was worth it since I may still have more schooling to do in order to stay in the setting I’m already working in as an unlicensed staff. *sigh* These kind of letdowns suck. I guess I am in a little bit of a crisis because I have no idea where I’ll be in September, jobwise. I always thought I’d be able to go back to my floor, but I guess that isn’t certain anymore.
I’m with ya sourpatch. I got my degree last summer and have yet to find full time employment in a job that reflects my field of study. My 1/4 life transit was about 10 years ago, but I generally regarded my 20s as a wasteland. Relationships that went nowhere, a sense of being lost and without direction. Half the time I think back and can’t even remember anything that was memorable about it. Not that there weren’t memorable moments, those 10 years just seem rather vague in my memory. I have an older friend in her 40s who is always telling me that she hated her 20s and felt so much happier and content in her life once she got into her 30s. I’m hoping to have the realization myself in the next year or so, but so far this year is sucking as far as ambition, making future plans and running into lucky opportunities.
Not sure what to blame it all on, though I do have Pluto in retrograde transiting through my 1st house. And Neptune is currently slinking through my 2nd house, so maybe that’s why things having to do with finance, security and independence seem murky and unattainable?
Don’t forget there’s a global recession on. Sometimes it’s just hard to get a job. Society is continually shifting the parameters to maintain ‘growth’/competitiveness.
Though I’d look to the 6th, 9th and 10th houses
Hmm, currently or natally?
Currently I have no planets in the 6th and 10th, with Saturn in the 9th.
Natally I have nothing in 6th in Gemini, Sun in 10th in Scorpio, and Pluto and NN in the 9th in Libra. Does that make sense of things?
Kim’s book is cool.
I’m kind of making this up but, Pluto rules your sun, and is in your first, so as W says, some transformation to how you cone across things might be impacting your MC/sun/10th house things.
Are there aspects there?
Plus your chart ruler Saturn (?) in your house of higher learning asking you to look at education philosophy type things, have you done enough, taken the right direction etc? Is Saturn on Pluto or your NN yet? That may enhance that how does this play into my future thing.
Just guessing.
How do you tell what your chart ruler is?
Saturn is past my NN, but 5 degrees away from my natal Pluto. My natal Pluto is also just 1 degree away from my MC. I don’t know what that means, but it seems like it should be important, lol. Mars is also directly on my IC at the moment, in case that means anything.
What aspects should I look for? Do you mean natally or transit-wise? Is there a way to look up your transit aspects? If so, I haven’t yet found that option on astrodient. 😉
Chart ruler rules your rising sign (Capricorn?)
Sign ruler rules your sun sign, so Pluto.
Yes Pluto on your MC would be important – google it
In astrodeinst you can look at a chart with transits in the extended chart selection section, then if you look at the top left corner you’ll see a link to a PDF, which has all the natal and transit aspects in tables like what you see at the bottom of the chart. Or you can just eyeball them
Get interps of transits from the free short forecast report, which is part of astrodeinsts free stuff, or cafe astrology is good too.
Hope that helps.
And Kim’s book
Oh, Neptune then! I’m a Sagg Rising (though Cap is 4 degrees away and due to a daylight savings time glitch, I always thought I was Cappy Rising, until a few years ago. If the chart ruler has a heavy influence then I like that it’s Neptune! I definitely have that dreamy, vivid imagination, artsy fantasy streak in me, despite having no planets in Pisces. Every once in awhile I have that surreal otherworldly “I don’t belong here…in this place, at this time, among these people” feeling, which I’ve always associated with Neptune.
I’ll look into Kim’s book too. Thanks so much for these insights shell and whatevs! 🙂
Thanks whatevs, there has been a lot of “what do I REALLY want to do” introspective thinking going on lately. The jobs that I’d fit into are all in the bigger cities, cities I can’t afford to move to now, so for the time being it’s all about what I can do in hopes of one day getting to a better place, when things will start working out in my favor.
The 5th house is an interesting one to look at for luck. I have no planets there and nothing is transiting there at the moment. But my 5th is in Taurus, and it’s been true that I’m finding solace in the earthly delights like gardening, cooking and trying to enjoy the simple things around me in the here and now.
Your bit about having to move but not being able to so making plans sounds very Saturn in 9th.
But do you have Uranus near your sun? (sun shine outta your arse?)
I’m surprised you’ve not gone ‘fuck it’ and launched into a bit of sinatra as you packed your bags. (or do Virgo moons not do show tunes?)
Oh dear, must be time for me to have a drink, the mutable is coming out.
Sunshine out of my arse? Oh dear, lol. Well, it’s not conjunct, but it’s 13 degrees away and also in Scorpio. *Insert Scorpio genital-ruling joke here.*
Sure, Virgo Moons do show tunes. What they don’t do (or at least in my case) is take big risks or make quick decisions. They do worry and fret and (with some Scorpio help) overthink and stress about the future. The worry of failure in those ventures kinda reins in my Sagg Rising from achieving its true potential. The Scorpio is at home in my very watery chart, but alas the Sagg can’t run free in those deep waters, causing frustration and anxiety to set in.
As an interesting side note, in Chinese astrology I was born in the year of the Horse (which always seemed in stark contrast to all my Scorpy traits), but specifically it’s the “Horse in the Gate”, which means that all my outgoing and ambitious horsey traits are restrained and constricted. Sounds depressing, but apparently these people are better than others at thriving under pressure and making the most of limited resources or bad situations. Makes a curious comparison to the Sagg elements in my Western chart.
Ah Sagg rising, Jupiter is your chart ruler then.
So you look to what parts of your chart Jupiter and Pluto are activating by transit, and also what activated by, and from where natally.
Saggies do show tunes I’m sure. They also love to run away.
A well planned run away to seek you fame and fortune, maybe for when Jupiter hits your 5th (Taurus?) might work.
Saturn Pluto may help with that (though it may not be hard, depends on how ‘prepared’ you are for what saturn has to say)
Ack! Too many posts, getting all confused. Yes, I meant Jupiter…which, to be honest, I’m trying to embrace for all its jovial optimism, but I can’t quite get a hold on it. Damn, and I was getting all into Neptune too, lol.
Ok, so transit-wise Jupiter is in the 4th house and my natal Pluto in the 9th. By eyeballing it, it looks like they are opposing each other, so that could be a tug-o-war situation maybe?
Ooh, not quite a square, Pluto retro is 81.5 degrees away from natal Pluto. But your description does allow me to let out a mighty sigh of relief. Is the MC about first impressions, on the superficial level in a similar way that the Asc. is? I could say that most people upon first meeting me would say I’m more shy and reserved, even to the point of being aloof. My close friends would probably say the opposite, that I’m quirky, silly, generous and always up for an adventure. Of course they’ve also said, “But who would know, because when I first met you, you were SO quiet!” 😉
MC is about public appearances, rather than personal. More the impression you give the collective ‘they’ rather than to actual individual people. Associated with career ( rather than work) and fame.
And considering that the career concerns are currently undecided and yet to be realized, maybe that’s an area that can’t be interpreted yet? Hmm…so much to ponder now.
I honestly feel freer than I did in highschool, but it is still quite a dead-end (especially in love/relationships). I only did start feeling some sense of direction when I got accepted into my program of study….only to have that sense of direction go murky again when I realized I may not be able to work in a hospital again for another two years. The problem is the *ranking* here, my kind of nurse (LPN) has very limited oppurtunities and I just found out my boss no longer wants to hire them. The chances are I may have to go job searching again after this summer.
And Pluto is retro in my 12th house while Neptune is currently in my 2nd as well. Security, finance, and independence have been difficult to grasp for a while. I tried living on my own about 3 years ago but my wages were so unsteady that it didn’t work out.
Sourpatch, are you in the US or elsewhere? I know there is a nursing shortage here in the US, but hospital politics in the healthcare system here make it difficult to sometimes find a job. My mom has been an ER nurse for the past almost 30 years, but took a management position a few years ago. When she first went to school for it there were only nursing certificates, no degree programs available. She’s lucky in that her hospital has sponsored a reimbursement program for nurses that want to go back to school to get their degrees now. Although she says that it was so popular that it might be discontinued, since the hospital has had to pay out more funds for it than they had intended. Have you thought about or is there any way to expand on your LPN degree, so that you can utilize your education in other ways? I know it’s tough trying to reorganize your job goals when you realize that the market for your skills is no longer in demand. Reinventing yourself is a very Plutonian exercise, but it’s by no means easy and is often forced…or so I’ve found. Regardless, it still sucks. 😛
I am living in the U.S. 🙂 And yes, I’ve pretty much realized that if I want unlimited opportunities I have to transition to RN which is my next step in November.
What I don’t get is that if there’s such a shortage of Nurses, wouldn’t it BENEFIT hospitals to use LPNs? I don’t get the politics sometimes, but oh well….I guess Im stuck in an office setting or homecare until I get my RN license.
Oh wow, thanks for the recommendation! I read snippets so far and it seems interesting. 😀
Yep, totally went through all this two years ago. It sucked, but I am so, SO much better off for it. Natal Neptune is in my 10th house, and I almost followed the COMPLETELY wrong career path. Thanks heavens I wised up.
Really? I was told it was Uranus Quarter Turn? Was I told crap? seriously. inquiring minds want to know! =)
It was intense. IT seemed to be about coming to terms about what my limits were. Before then it was my parents or authoritarians setting limits. I fell in love for the first time and felt a true crush when it was not returned properly. I questioned my sub-culture and explored others.
How about 23? I had a total rebirth around that time. 22 was awful and was the necessary pain for what was to follow.
24/25 I had my first child. I guess you’d call that pretty big when it comes to milestones, but the crisis was all before.