I’ve grown up way too fast since graduating

It was a year ago that I graduated from college, and in that time I’ve moved across the country twice, moved in with my significant other, had two jobs, been promoted, gotten engaged to said significant other and have started noticing just how important moisturizer is to the skin underneath my eyes… because it’s begun to wrinkle. I’m basically a shar pei underneath my eyes now.

But beyond wrinkles, doing all this stuff in so little time has caused me to age mentally by, like, at least 15 years. It’s most noticeable when I’m interacting with fellow post-grads. Between the lingo that I’ve lost track of, and the energy I’ve lost altogether, I’m no longer a peer. I’m pretty much that aunt on Facebook who still capitalizes “lol” and shares the same eCards that were popular six years ago (I don’t capitalize “lol.” I don’t even use “lol,” because rarely do I “laugh out loud.” That’s just false advertising. You don’t laugh out loud when I ask you what you’re up to, and you say “nothing lol.” You’re lol’ing like everyone was brb’ing back in 1999. Nobody ever just brb’d. They left. They were gone. The latest “Friends” episode was clearly more important than making plans to see “Fight Club” before it left theaters.).

…Because you won’t be.

1. Going out to the bar after work is a fantasy that likely will never happen. Not unless we gain 10 more hours the next time we set our clocks back for daylight saving time. I can’t just pick up a Red Bull and throw on my hooker boots anymore. I need a nap, a DD and a Subway sandwich as insurance for my laughably low tolerance.

2. When you use this week’s random new millenial phrase, such as “on fleek” or “bae,” I make this face:

3. I have no idea which reality shows are now on MTV. I gave up when “Teen Mom” just inspired more teens to become moms.

4. When I see minors (that’s another thing, I say “minors”) doing things they shouldn’t, I often say to myself, “Where is your mother?” I revel in the thought of taking those teens by the ears, taking them home to their mothers and having those mothers say, “Thank you, responsible twenty-something who acts at least 15 years older than she really is. I hope this child turns out to be just like you.”

But, hey, here’s to being young.

Things I can’t do now that I’ve graduated college

I may be 23 and a college graduate, but every single time those commercials come on with the dancing binders and all the cues that people need to get their lives back together again, I get so excited. In grade school, it meant getting new clothes and school supplies (honestly, I was more excited for school supplies), and in college, it meant new school supplies and a premeditated hatred for a class based on its syllabus.

Now, it means putting on a jacket before going to work.

Knowing that I’m officially done with having nothing to do on a Tuesday except sit at a desk and fantasize about what I’m going to eat after class has me missing certain things about college.

1. There’s no more hype about hitting the town hard on our first night back at college.

2. It is no longer acceptable for me to spread all my new folders and binders on my floor and spend several hours deciding how I want to color code them with my classes.

3. Those three-hour naps I used to take after my noon class, with Sex and the City on low volume and the promise of Subway when I woke up, those will never happen again.

 

 

4. The “I just rolled out of bed in my sweatpants and baseball t-shirt” look doesn’t fly in the work place, even on the West Coast. And actually, even in public it isn’t completely acceptable. When you do that after college, you’re kind of on the same playing field as those people who wear onesies to Walmart.

5. You can’t “skip” work the way you’d “skip” class. Even if you email your boss that morning, even if your tummy hurts, even if there’s a fire, because you’re getting paid.

6.  And finally, once you walk across the stage, you lose all ability to party, or stay up later than 10 p.m. on a weeknight. You have to work in the morning, you’re an adult.

My Feelings Expressed Through Childish Gambino Quotes

1. On my Comm Law final.

2. On all my other finals.

3. On iced coffee.

4. On having a job right out of college, and really everything else.

5. To the people I wave to, but they don’t see me.

6. On graduating in three days.

7. On my choice of outfits during finals week.

8. On doing well at my new job in two weeks.

9. On trying to stay out late, but having to go home at midnight because I’m tired.

 

10. To all my fellow graduates on their future endeavors.

…I really should have used the 20 minutes it took to make this post to study instead.

We Need to Talk…

I’m leaving this institution and this state in a couple weeks, so I’m going to get several things off my chest. Are they a little dorky and borderline neurotic? Sure. But you don’t have to read them if you don’t want to, OK?

1. Do NOT show up 15 minutes late to a class that only lasts 45 minutes. Just stay home and pretend you have respect for the professor. I realize you’re simply late to class, and not a fascist dictator, so you shouldn’t be chastised. But actually, you should. What would your mother say? I want to record you strolling in and looking at people like, “What?” and email it to your mother with the subject “LOOK WHAT THEY DID.”

2. Do your work! Just do it! Don’t come to a class (probably late) in which you have to turn in work, or contribute in some manner, and say, “I didn’t do it” when asked to ante up. You are a grown-ass person who’s made it–SOMEHOW–to college. Just do your work, and then it’ll be done, and then you will no longer be an idiot.

3. When someone holds the door open for you, say thank you! In this country, it’s considered polite to hold a door open for someone behind you, and the polite response to such an act is bleeping gratitude. Don’t just look at the person who waited for your ass to mosey over to the door as if it was their duty to God and their country to hold the door open specifically for you. Jerk.

4. Be nice to the lady making your food. Seriously. The attitudes I see toward the people in charge of feeding college students who should know better is embarrassing. Use “yes ma’am,” “no ma’am,” “yes, please,” “no, thank you” and just plain “thank you” throughout that entire interaction, or so help me God, I will lose it. You deserve every long black hair or missing piece of your order you get.

5. DO NOT go on a social networking rant if you cannot use proper grammar. I mean it. If you don’t know how to use there/their/they’re, to/too, effect/affect, commas or punctuation, just keep to yourself and let the big kids take care of things. You must have thought you were a real cool S.O.B. in school with your faux-hawk, frosted tips or racist clothing brand, but in this day and age the nerds are in charge, and you’re just a dummy with too much gel in his hair and incorrect tattoos.

I’m done.

Unproductive Senior Things I Need to Just Do Already

I was feeling all “get me out of here” until I read “An Open Letter to the Class of 2014,” and then I just wanted to curl up with a margarita pitcher and cry for my lost childhood.

And then I realized that all I’ve done this semester is try to get out of here; get a job, get a place to live, get a diploma, get a cap and gown, get my graduation application approved and get across the stage without falling on my face.

But there are SO MANY things I haven’t done in the midst of getting ready, getting set and going.

1. I need to try a Bloody Mary.

2. I need to share a pitcher of Bloody Mary with my friends in comfy clothes and just gab until we pass out.

3. I need to take one night and not worry about what time it is, or what time I have to wake up in the morning.

4. I need to make frozen yogurt a closer, more personal friend.

5. I HAVE to spend more time than just once a week with my friends.

6. I need to take more naps.

7. Finally, I have to wear more embarrassing sweatpants and baseball caps together. Not yoga pants, but those big old sweatpants that make you look like you should be on the interstate with a sign that says something like, “My dog needs a wheel for his bum leg.”

 

I’m Moving in with a Man

In a month, I’ll be across the country, in a place where no one knows who I am… except for the man I’m moving there with. Some days this is a comfort. Some days, I think about my drawer of chocolate and how angry I get when it’s empty, and panic that another human being will be susceptible to the Hulk-like outrage.

I just need to wrap my head around a few things:

1. When we fight, I won’t be able to stomp out and go back to my place. I can stomp out, but at some point I’ll have to saunter back, because now my place will be “our place.”

2. As an extension of No. 1, I’ll have to share the TV fairly. Sports will be inescapable. “Extreme Cheapskates” will make its way into my home, because now it’s “our home.”

3. I have to find friends other than him in order to maintain my sanity, and to make sure he and I will have something to talk about during commercials when “Extreme Cheapskates” is on.

4. This man will rely on my cooking skills to survive. So I need to master something other than omelets, boxed mashed potatoes, sautéed mushrooms and blender-less milkshakes.

 

It’ll work out somehow. It’s just going to take some getting used to… and a white-board calendar to map out our TV schedules.

 

I’m Moving to Oregon, and Have Some Feelings

In just under two months, I’ll be moving to Oregon to start my career. It couldn’t come at a better time, as I’ve been slipping rapidly into a bagel craze that would absolutely result in me becoming a couch cushion in my parents’ house if I didn’t have my life together before I graduated.

I have many feelings on the subject of starting a new life 3,000 miles from my family and friends, some of which I am not proud of.

1. I have to stop spending money like an underage kid in a strip club.

2. I won’t be able to see my family for, like, years. Or until I save up enough money for a plane ticket.

3. I have to drive across the country, and I’ve never driven any longer (on purpose) than 30 minutes.

 4. I get to make new friends, which may or may not be a success.

5. I’ll probably live super close to the beach, thereby ending my ghostliness. 

6. I’ll have a job doing what I absolutely LOVE.

This will be the most horrifying, life-changing, ridiculous, wonderful thing I’ve ever done. I’m going to be crying for the next two months, and won’t be able to tell if I’m happy or sad. But could you pass up this opportunity? I can’t. So either way, whether I succeed or fail, I’ll be glad I took a chance.

 

Signs that I Need to Graduate Already

 

You know how people who have been in a stagnant environment that no longer presents a challenge for too long tend to become weird and borderline psychopath (I don’t use the P-word lightly, because no girl wants to be referred to as– or will admit to being– a psychopath)?

I didn’t understand how these people came to be until I entered my last semester of college. Here’s how I can tell…

1. The small world in my head is getting bigger, and I’m becoming less and less a part of reality. Example: Yesterday I was in Walmart, and found myself determined to get a carton of International Delight iced coffee to the point where it’s all I could think about. I was so consumed by my future with this caramel macchiato magic that when a man got in my way, instead of saying, “Pardon me,” all I could get out was a smile and, “Coffee.”

 

2. My professors have picked up on the fact that I’m no longer doing them a favor when they call on me in class. They are the ones doing me a favor. They can see the desperation to be told I’m doing something right in my life. I just want to make someone proud. If I can’t win in a 300-level class in which all I have to do is raise my hand to get an A, what is life?

 

3. Out of the four weeks of class we’ve had this semester, I’ve worn sweatpants to class… four weeks. I figure in a couple months I won’t be able to do this, whether I have a job or am desperately begging someone for one. This is probably the most depressing part about still being in college; being able to dress like a bum because you’re living off government funding and aren’t qualified to work in the career you want. People, we can dress like bums BECAUSE WE ARE BUMS. How do you feel about yourself now, hmm?

 

GET. ME. OUT. OF. HERE.

I Made a Big-Kid Blog!

 

Among other things, I am technologically inept. So it’s a miracle that I’ve been able to move on to such an advanced form of blog-making.

I appreciate your support through this confusing and difficult time.