Maybe it’s because of the now-infamous Taylor Swift song, but I’ve always associated turning 22 with becoming an actual adult. 21 is for being able to drink, and 22 is for figuring your life out… or so I thought. I’m about two weeks into my 22nd year, and I haven’t had any life-changing revelations; in fact, I feel the exact same as I did at 21. In light of that, here are ten things I still don’t know by this age (that I feel like I should), in case you were also expecting your 22nd birthday to be the day you got your sh*t together once and for all.
1. What I’m doing with my life.
With there being a little less than a month until I graduate, this is what I was really looking for when I turned 22. I’ve grown so used to shrugging and going “ahhhh” when someone asks me what I’m doing after I receive my long-awaited diploma, that it’s just a natural instinct at this point. Still 22, still no answer–maybe next year?
2. How to answer, “So tell me about yourself!”
Most people have job interview anxiety, myself included. Though, I feel anxiety about this question, specifically. I have no idea how to tread the line of being confident and sounding overly cocky; I don’t want to undersell myself, but I don’t want to ramble on for five minutes about how awesome I am. Any and all tips on how to answer this dreaded question would be much appreciated.
3. Insurance???
Maybe it’s because I doodled my way through personal finance my freshman year of high school, but I couldn’t tell you anything about getting insurance if my life depended on it. The birthday I’m really dreading at this point is 26, because that’s when I have to navigate the world of health insurance alone… please help.
4. Telling differences between wines.
My real goal for this year is to develop a taste for wines since any and all experience I’ve had up to this point has included drinking it out of a box or out of a three dollar bottle. I have a lot of respect for people (*cough, cough,* my dad) who can smell the hundreds of differences between Red number one and Red number two because I genuinely could not tell you how they differ if I tried my hardest.
5. How to fill out a W2.
Filling out a W2 form at a new job has to be one of the most stress-inducing things I can think of because I literally could not tell you if I’m doing it right any time I’ve done it. I’ve become a little bit of a master at sneaking my dad pictures of my W2 and waiting for him to get back to me because I’d rather take twenty minutes to fill it out than do it wrong.
6. Why I can no longer sleep past 9:30 a.m.
This was the one and only sign of change I experienced after turning 22. While I used to famously be able to sleep through anything for up to 13 hours, I now can only sleep until 9:30. There has only been one time this entire semester I’ve slept until 10:30 a.m., and that used to be waking up early for me. Hopefully, being an adult means I can still sleep in a little bit every once in a while because I hate this.
7. Why the Pacer Test was a thing.
Seriously. What were they training us for? I learned two things, and two things only, during the Pacer Test all the years I was forced to participate: 1) I could never be an athlete 2) being subject to watch the two fastest people in your grade duke it out for ten laps is equal parts entertaining and vaguely Hunger Games-y. If anyone can give me three good reasons why the Pacer Test was forced upon me twice a year for 11 years, I’ll bring you wine tasting.
8. How to like bleu cheese.
I really thought that turning 22 would come with an improved, more “adult” palette, but no. I still have bleu cheese. It’s mold. It is literally mold. I do not, and probably will never, like bleu cheese, because then I just question why this particular mold is edible but I have to toss a whole bag of bagels just because one of them turned fuzzy. No thanks.
9. The right way to dress for “business casual.”
I don’t think anything in this world gives me as much anxiety as the term “business casual,” because I genuinely do not know how to dress for this. Is it more business casual, or more casual business casual? What if I’m underdressed? What if I’m overdressed? The whole thing is enough for me to have a breakdown while trying on outfit after outfit and decide not to go.
10. How to change a tire.
Luckily, I don’t have a car, so this has never been much of an issue. However, I still feel like this is something you either know or should know because you never know when you’ll be abandoned on the side of the road alone with a flat tire. It’s the kind of skill you don’t know you’ll need until you need it. Always be prepared!
Hopefully, this year teaches me some of these things and more. What’s something you still didn’t know by your last birthday?