For a while, it seemed like our entire lives led up to college. You all know that one thing your parents have said since the beginning: College is the best time of your life. It’s a phrase that only becomes more depressing as time goes on, especially now that graduation is here. You’re filled with melancholy feelings of wishing you had more time with your college friends in your college apartment with your shelf on empty bottles.

Well, stop it.

College may very well have been the best time of THEIR lives (but honestly if that’s true you need to go hug your mom). However, it’s not fair to categorize college as the peak because it’s not. College is a trial period. You learn how to balance work and play, you learn how to be whatever job title you want to have one day, you learn how to force yourself to meet new people, and feed yourself without ruining your body. We can be honest, you’re still learning but now you get to adult for the first time in your life. No one is forcing you to become a mom with 17 kids as soon as you cross that stage or move home and relive your parents’ entire lifespan. Your life is just that: Yours.

It’s finally gotten to the point where all the choices are on you. The test run is over and you aren’t really leaving a ton behind because nothing is stopping you from those great fun experiences you think you’ll miss. You can still live in a cramped apartment with mismatched furniture. You can still go out every night if you want, even though your body might hate you. It’s all up to you.

Graduation is just a forced opportunity to experience new things, which you have already done at least once by coming to college. Except now you actually get to make adult money and that’s definitely something to get pumped about.

So in honor of the new chapter, here is a graduation playlist that for once won’t make you cry your eyes out. You can remember the past fondly without having to listen to 100 years by Five for Fighting. You’re literally 22, you don’t have grandkids yet okay? It’s time to celebrate.