Sometimes we get stuck, you graduated from that impressive university, and your days now consist of filling out job applications and arguing politics with your octogenarian grandfather. Here are a few things to expect when you return to your hometown after college.
You Don’t Have a Social Life Anymore-
Or at least you are no longer eating sushi with your eight best mates and spending Friday nights at a friend’s kegger. You are now most likely home at 8:00 PM watching Matlock with your father and wondering which girl from your hometown you could call for a casual date.
Grocery Shopping with Your Parents is a Nightmare
You never knew how hard acquiring food is in the real world. There is no more awful campus dining service food, but you have to cook everything yourself. After a week of ramen and PB & J sandwiches, you decide to go gourmet and join your parents at the grocery. Unknown to you they hawk coupons, penny pinch on overly ripe fruit, and argue endlessly about the price of papayas.
Your Parents Have Opinions About Your Dating Life
You will either be “dating the wrong people” or “not dating enough.” Forget college flings, your mother’s friends the Andersons have a daughter your age. Why don’t you take her on a date? Forget the fact that she is a twenty-two-year-old My Little Pony fan. She will arrive at your car wearing some unironic country music T-shirt. You will both find rapport in talking about your domiciles and your aging parents. You will be elated when you find out she has a connection to the only party in the neighborhood or frankly the complete boxed set of Friends.
Your Parents are Helpless with Technology
Your parents have jobs, or at least they did before they retired, you would imagine they have a firm grasp on technology. Don’t expect them to be able to write code or master Twitter posts, but you’d like to hope they can email their friends and update their smartphones. You’re sorely mistaken, your parents treat technology as this esoteric world that only “Kathy from down the street” understands. You will wow them with basic key commands, and they will pester you to help them post videos of the family cat on Facebook. In the end, they will talk about the “Cloud” so often you will come to the concussion that they might think it is a physical airborne object.
“What’s Next?”
Every relative that you only see at reunions and funerals will be asking, “So what’s next?” You will look at them blankly and try to decide a new response to someone asking, “What do you do with an English/Creative writing degree?” “Write creatively, explore the human condition through fiction, be my own freaking boss.” Whichever you decide to say they will all look down, sigh, and say “oh” before walking away.
You will get out, it may not be today or tomorrow, and you may work a terrible job washing dishes or slinging fries, but you will make money to move out into the “real world.” And when you do smile like a god because this is your life now, and
it’s up to you to make your dreams a reality.
Feature image via @unsplash.com
