A couple of my good friends got engaged this week. Not to each other. You know what this means? I’m officially entering that phase in my life where I’m going to be attending weddings a lot in the summers. I’m going to celebrate the lifelong love of my closest confidants. I’m really excited for all of these people, but I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

While those people were getting engaged, I woke up on Thursday morning at about 11 am with a hangover. I also had $25 in my checking account not allocated to bills, a messy room, no sheets on my bed, a pile of dirty clothes that’s threatening to cause injury due to its massive size and location, a broken phone, a broken windshield on my car, a doughy body due to my year-long hiatus from exercise, and no hint of a romantic relationship headed toward even sharing a cable bill, let alone marriage. Adding insult to injury: I went out with a guy this week who’s building a multi-million dollar company, thus making me feel even more like I’m doing nothing with my life right now, and then Berkeley rejected me from law school.

I’ve written about getting my shit together before as if it would be some kind of impetus to do so. That’s obviously panning out. I’m pretty sure I’m headed right down the track of wearing the same sweatpants for two weeks straight until I die alone and the neighborhood cats gnaw on my body until the smell reaches the neighbors. They say when you get down you should rely on good friends to pull you on up by your bootstraps, so, naturally, I took out my mental health common cold on some of my closest confidants, getting angry with them for their lack of validation and then storming off (uh, signing off the internet… like I have friends in real life) (also, sorry Ali…Tyler…Hayes…Molly…Jen…okay, stopping).

Fine, I’m going to law school next year. Fine, on Thursday I also went to a board meeting as the Director of Marketing for a non-profit. Fine, I have a few friends in real life. Fine, I have had marginally successful romantic relationships. Fine, I’ve said a hundred times that I want to be single right now. Fine, sometimes people think I’m funny. Fine. Fine. Fine. Sometimes a girl’s gotta wallow in her despair, okay? I mean, we’ve all got baggage; what differs is how we carry it (like my roommate Paige, who probably has a matching suitcase set whereas I’ve got a taped-together trash bag).

The thing is, in some ways, I can’t wait to be a real adult, waking up in my home with a mortgage, making coffee, feeding the dog, organizing the mail, going to work, making a bunch of deals, speaking at a benefit, coming home, having a glass of wine, reading in bed next to my husband, and then going to sleep only to start over again the next day… But then what? Barring the fact that that scene actually sounds marginally horrifying, the scarier thing is the idea of not having any problems to solve.

Sometimes I forget that everyone my age is trying to figure their shit out right now. Everyone wishes they were making more money or spending more time making an impact or connecting with someone on an intense level or not getting tired when they run. As life goes on, if we’re patient, we’re probably either going to figure those things out or (if we’re not patient) settle, but it’s never going to be like it is right now again. Quite frankly, it’s this process that makes us cool humans (yeah, I went there, you can thank my high school guidance counselor and 1 semester of college psych).

So, yeah, do I wish that underneath the surface I was just as shiny as I am when I’m presenting in front of real adults or charming someone on an epic date or talking about my hopes and dreams in a law school essay? Sure. But then I’d be a plastic politician. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna wallow, but I’m also going to take Jerry-Springer-trainwreck-like solace in the fact that even if you’ve got a piece of the puzzle in place, you’re occasionally wallowing over something, too.  Let’s hug and talk about how failure is beautiful.