Oh god...Did I Miss My Peak?!!!

I'm 26. Turning 27...soon-ish.

This girl is funny:

She is a successful tv comedy writer, stand up comic, and has over 1.5 million YouTube hits.

...and she's 2 years younger than me. oh god Here is her bio:

Rachel Bloom is a comedian based in Los Angeles. She currently writes for the Adult Swim show “Robot Chicken” and is developing a musical television pilot for Fox Studios. Rachel specializes in the combination of music and comedy, creating comedic music videos for the internet as well as performing live shows around the Los Angeles area. She wrote and performed two musical sketch shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theaters on both coasts: “Rachel Bloom is a Triple Threat!!!” and “Sing Out, Louise!” Her 2010 music video “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury” was a viral sensation and nominated for a Hugo Science Fiction Award. Her music videos have been featured on FunnyorDie, Huffingtonpost, Buzzfeed and Wired, among others. She was also a writer for the Fox animated show “Allen Gregory.”

Now, usually when I see funny things by successful people I think "Oh cool, I can totally be doing that when I'm their age!"...This is not one of those times. This is one of those "OH GOD. Did I miss my peak?! What am I doing with my life?! OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD" times.


Folks, I've got a blog, I've got a personal website (see what I did there?)...I'm ballin' pretty hard, I know. But...what if I've peaked?

Obviously illin' like a villain.

The worry is, peaking isn't the kind of thing you'd notice...on the way up everything's coming up Milhouse, at the peak you're too busy peaking, and on the long, steady decline you're so out of touch you can't recognize failure anymore...thus the aforementioned long, steady decline...

 For years I felt like there would be no peak in my own coolness graph... like it was (to quote Morrissey) "I'm balancing life's riches against the ditches and the flat grey years in between..." ...Then I turned 17, purchased Proactiv, and realized that not being part of the in-crowd was kind of ok...because all those popular kids had was friends, money, and happiness. I mean, who needs that? Not me. Nope. I'm fine. Just doing great...over here...by myself. Yup.

 

Then Mark Zuckberg birthed his Facebook baby, and that gave me such hope, because I was finally cooler than the cool kids... It provided photographic evidence that all those "cool kids" from grade school peaked at age 12 (this is really really not the ideal age at which to tap out...it leaves so many decades of middling blah before you are finally allowed to die...). Stealing my pogs in 1994 = cool. Living at home with an impressive collection of shitty tattoos at 26 = you've peaked.

(On a sidenote, Zack is actually a really nice guy...but I think Scut would not have fared well in life...)

In the clear for a peak in the long past...but what about the recent past?!! If I have peaked, (for the record, I'm saying I haven't...BUT, IF...) what do I have to show for it?


...


I've traveled a bit, I married a pretty cool dude, and I've got some sweet cats...I'm also lvl 55 in Skyrim (this may be part of my problem)... Peaking now, or even worse, having peaked in high school would be a pretty bad situation... Witness exhibit grade 11:

Hai guysh!

I'm teh coolesht!

Nobody wants to have to look at this period in life and think "Fuck yea, I owned high school..."


So how does one fight stagnation and refuse to settle? I try and write something everyday, not all of it is great...but I think can say that most of it is, amiright? (oh god please say I'm right...) And I set goals for myself that I strive for everyday...some more achievable than others...at this point I'm pretty close to concluding that I will not be an astronaut...fuck ah well.

See, you've got to look at the big picture, and not get bogged down in the random ups and downs of everyday life. So what if your 23 year old co-worker just won at Roll Up the Rim? You NEED to look at the overall trend, Claire. YOU ARE NOT A LOSER, OK? THAT TEA YOU CHOKED DOWN JUST WASN'T THE RIGHT ONE!

Breathe dude...breathe. You're gonna win that car, just one more cup of shitty tea from Tim Hortons. The next one will be good, ok? Ok.


So, Rachel Bloom, I want you to know that I stand and applaud you for your well-deserved successes. You serve as an inspiration to me, as to what I can achieve if I work hard, and am really really ridiculously good looking. 


But if you sleep with Ray Bradbury, I will cut you.

...Step off biatch.