Growing up sucks. There's no other way to put it. When you turn 18, you don't get handed a how-to guide on being an adult. There's no preparation for growing up. You're thrown into a messy world and you're expected to know what you're doing and what's going on. I can't promise you that you're ever going to learn everything you need to know about a growing up, but maybe this will help.
1. You can’t live off of bar food.
I mean you can, it’s possible, but you’re going to feel like absolute garbage until you get real vegetables into your system. I'm serious. Don't try to prove me wrong.
2. Same thing for alcohol.
Except, you really can’t live off of it. Because that’s called alcoholism. And that’s not OK.
3. People leave and it sucks.
There's just no poetic way to put it. It is their choice to leave you, and they have their reasons that make sense to them even if it doesn't make sense to you. But you lived without them before, so you can live without them when they’re gone.
4. You will leave people behind, too.
You grow apart from people you swore you never would grow apart from. It's inevitable.
5. You should own a suit.
Something dressy. Something you can wear to your one interview, even though you’ll never wear it to work ever again. Something you can wear to a wedding or a funeral, just something that is tailored to fit you and make you look presentable.
6. The love of your life doesn’t spot you drinking coffee in some cozy shop and ask to share the table with you.
You meet them on a dating website or you knew their a** before you started dating. Or they use a really lame pick up line and bam! There's the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with.
7. You're going to doubt yourself, a lot.
But that's why it's important to surround yourself with positive friends. If not, you're all just going to be doubting each other, and that’s no fun.
8. You don't learn any of the "adult things" in college or high school.
Sure, I learned all about anthropology and sociology (things I enjoyed learning about) but I don't know how often they'll come up in my late 20s and beyond. I know nothing about balancing checkbooks or who to call when I want to buy a house (Spoiler: You should call the bank and a realtor). So pay attention to what your parents are doing. Ask for help. It's OK. We're the spoiled generation anyway.
9. There is no actual time where everything just clicks together or falls into place.
You're not going to graduate college and then a few weeks later you're handed a diploma that says, "Congratulations, you're an adult!" You can be 25 and still not know what's going on. There's nothing wrong with that. People move at their own pace. Some people will have it together at 22, others won't have it together until they're 30. That's OK. Stop judging each other. Help each other out instead.
10. All of those movies and TV shows were wrong.
So wrong. College boys do not look like men out of magazine ads. They wear stained sweatpants or shorts in the winter with stupid baseball caps. Girls do not wake up with flawless, airbrushed skin in the morning completely refreshed. They wake up with their hair literally all over the place and drool on the corner of their mouth. You don't randomly get your dream job in the city with no help or hard work of your own. You work your a** off for a less than great job and still push for the ultimate career you want.
11. Some people don't want to touch your heart, and you're not always going to want to touch theirs.
You're going to make love and have meaningless sex. Someone's not going to be as interested in you as you are in them, and that's going to be true of you and someone else. You're going to break hearts the same way how yours will be broken.
12. The people you fall in love with do not always fall in love with you back.
This will be the hardest lesson you will ever have to learn, I promise you. The sad truth is that we do not choose who we fall in love with, it just happens. Sometimes it's out of nowhere, sometimes we can feel it building up for months or weeks at a time.
13. That being said, you cannot make someone love you to even save your life.
And these kinds of people, the ones who choose not to love you, you don't need them in your life. They serve you no purpose, they'll give you no direction. You do not need them. Remember your self worth.
