So, I graduated from college this past spring. I’ve learned a lot of things about the world and myself in that time. Below are my thoughts on life post-graduation. I wrote it in the second person because I think that’s how a lot of these listicles about life are written, but I hope that nobody reading this (assuming anybody does read this) will have to relate.

Your social life is over.

Even if you were as busy as I was in college, you were still probably able to make time for friends, because, well, you’re literally surrounded by them. You might have class all day, but you also might have one of those classes with somebody you happen to enjoy being around. If not, you might study at the same library, or even meet up at the campus cafeteria to talk over prison food. It may not seem like much, but in hindsight, it’s an orgy of communication compared to your life in “the real world.” It was tough for me to set time aside to see my parents, having classes five days a week and work (at least) the other two. Anymore, it takes weeks just to coordinate a phone call with my parents, let alone driving up to see them in person. If you’re anything like me, family takes priority over friends, or anyone else. Having a night out with friends (which was already an impossibility just out of reach in college for me) is now a fantasy.

Your job’s a joke and your paychecks are the punchline.

This one’s more anecdotal for me than it might be (hopefully will be) for others. I went to school for English, B.A., because my IQ is somewhere below the triple digits. I know others who went to school for more profitable subjects and have still found themselves tucked away and folded over by the economy, so who knows. The truth of the matter is, I’ve seen far too many people with college degrees working retail, fast food, or any other equally degrading position. The work is shitty, but you’re not given much of a choice. Even though every muscle in your body fights you when you wake up to go to work, and no matter how much of your tongue you amputate in efforts not to quit or say something that’ll result in your termination, you don’t have a choice. It might be slave labor, but what say do slaves have in the matter? It will destroy your body and burn moth holes in your soul, but the choice is yours. Would you rather live in misery or poverty?

The prospect of having children doesn’t seem too possible.

You know how your parents used to lecture you about how hard they’ve worked to provide for you and that you should be grateful? (If not, remember seeing that on cliché TV shows?) Unfortunately, they’re right. Simply keeping a roof over your head and some form of food on your plate can be a lot. I don’t know how people afford new clothes. Most of my wardrobe is from high school (and it probably shows). What isn’t could be summed up in saying that my mother still dresses me, because the other half has been collected over the last four Christmases. I don’t know how you’re supposed to provide for yourself, let alone some helpless thing that just consumes and cries for more. I’m aware of WIC and other welfares to help, but I know that’s not enough to effectively raise a child. Two people working forty hours a week (at least in my area) simply cannot afford to raise a kid. It used to seem possible to properly reproduce in your twenties when I was younger, but speaking personally, I can’t imagine anything of that nature before turning at least thirty. (I’ve never wanted to settle down or have kids young, so this isn’t so much a missed opportunity for me, but I recognize how disappointing this realization must be for those who have such aspirations.)

There’s no turning back.

Even if the highlight of your day is stumbling upon a memory, even if you find yourself only talking to the ghosts of the people you and your friends used to be, even when you wake up and don’t know what day it is, but you know that you’d rather sit it out, you can’t give up. You have to keep marching on, at gunpoint, into seniority. There’s no Save & Quit, no checkpoint to respond back to. You have to dig through the soil and the bones of those who came before you to find that baptismal oil, even after all your nails have broken off. You need to look for jobs in your field or pursue your goals, even if you can only do so for fifteen minutes at the end of the night. You can’t give up on the people in your life, including yourself. Too many people lose sight of themselves and become cynical automatons. You know the type. You might think it won’t happen to you, but it’s all too easy to forget the humanity in those around you and lose your own in the process. Even if you have to stow it away in the cage of your heart, like Bukowski’s bluebird, you can’t lose your sensitivity, your hopes, your self. The world’s eager to snatch it away and hide it someplace that could take you years to find again. Sometimes, happiness is too much to ask for, but simply making it through the day is enough.