You have monthly bills to pay.Even if your monthly expenses only consist of the $7.99 Netflix charge every month and several separate Chipotle charges, you have to manage your money to some extent. You work out your budget and make important decisions like going to the bar on Thursday night or brunch on Sunday morning.
You have a decent résumé.Finally, you have things to put on your resume besides for a camp counselor or super nanny protégé. Ironically you wish you could go back to getting paid to watch Disney movies with little kids instead of watching the same movies on Netflix by yourself.
You have a new, professional e-mail address.In order to save yourself from embarrassment and possible unemployment you changed your e-mail address from nsync4lyfe@ivehadthisemailsincemiddleschool.com to a standard e-mail like insertnamehere@gmail.com . Don’t worry though, you can still find other ways to tell the world how much you love N*SYNC.
You now ‘follow’ or are ‘friends’ with your parents on at least one social networking site.After spending years trying to keep your parents as far away from your social life as possible, you have given up and now receive occasional comments on your Facebook pictures like “It doesn’t look like your doing much studying!” or a tweet that says “Did you get my text? Answer me! #annoyed.” But instead of freaking out or blocking them, you just smile and show your friends how crazy old people on the Internet are.
You start doing your laundry instead of just buying new underwear or socks.After several weeks of abstaining from doing your laundry because you just don’t have enough time and/or patience, when your toes are cold and the only underwear left in the drawer are the Spice Girls Day of the Week undies you’ve had since middle school, you do your laundry.
You watch the news.All of a sudden it has become vital that you know and understand what is going on in the world. You casually get CNN news updates on your cell, read the newspaper, and sometimes (when you’re feeling especially wordly) even watch the news.
You know how to cook something.You can now feed yourself something other than a PB&J sandwich or a bowl of Lucky Charms (even though they are magically delicious). Most meals probably consist of pasta or eggs, but hey, it tastes good to you.
You go food shopping regularly and don’t spend all your time in the snack aisle.In order to do said cooking, you realize that you have to go to the supermarket all the time. While at the supermarket you are tempted to spend 40 minutes picking out all the snacks you want you don’t, because you realize that you can no longer sustain yourself on various flavors of Pop Tarts and Cheez-Its. Nowadays, you spend plenty of time in other aisles also.
When you realize you frequently have conversations that start with the sentence “Remember when…”Those crazy stories from high school and freshman year of college never get old, but the more we reminisce about the good old days, the longer ago those stories seemed to have actually occurred.
You drink coffee for the caffeine, not the cute Instagrams.One of your first thoughts in the morning when you drag yourself out of bed is “I want coffee.” You don’t even consider taking a picture of your squinty morning eyes and messed up hair along until you’ve had your caffeine fix. You also never order Frappuccino’s anymore because the combination of a some thousand odd calories along with minimal caffeine just won’t cut it anymore.
You get tax returns!Well, you file for tax returns and cross your fingers that you get a decent amount of money back. You’re still in college though, and even though you are beginning to become a real grown up person, we all know that your tax returns will likely be spent on alcohol and shopping… You’re only young once!
You own cute (and appropriate) clothes from stores other than Forever21.You now realize that the trendy fringed tank top and harem pants hanging in your closet (despite their adorable trendiness) are not appropriate for the interviews, work, and meetings that you now frequent.
You complain about the lack of quality children’s television shows.Because TV shows nowadays are not half as good as those found in the yesteryears of our childhood. Entertainment masterpieces such as Lizzie McGuire and The Rugrats have become a mere memory. You also contemplate telling these modern day children, “When I was you age TV shows were much better… etc.”
Your old favorite music is now played on the decades XM channels.You are most likely never going to hear “Oops I Did It Again”, “1,2 Step”, or “1985” on any radio station except for maybe 90’s on 9 or the Pop 2K. You can however hear One Direction or Justin Bieber pretty much at any given time.
You realize that even though you’re getting older it’s not the end of the world.Kids seem waste all their wishes on growing up as quickly as possible, and once they are grown they wish they could go back to being a kid. Eventually, however, you accept that you are now a real person in society and you don’t hate it. In the words of the popular girl group from our youth, B*Witched, “C’est la vie”!