The roaring 20s come with great expectations. You finally reach real adulthood, you have left behind your teenage days of frolicking and rollicking. You can drink and drive and tell your parents off by screaming at them “I am 20-something freaking years old. I have a say in my own life!” These are the last best years you will never get back. Exciting things will happen for the first time, the hazing days of college will finally be over, fooling around to the fullest and meeting new people will be all you do in the early 20s. You will get your first job, first car and have your first experience of being treated as a grown up at family functions which is not going to be pleasant, the adults will start talking about sex around you and constantly ask you about your new job and when you will be getting married and making babies. Someone very wise said all you need to do by the time you are 23 is to figure out who you are. Here are a few more things that will happen in your 20s.
10. Your Taste In Music Changes
You tend to dissociate yourself with the songs you listened to in your teens mostly, as you realize they are specifically catered to the hormonal hankerings of the teenagers, no matter how old the singers are. You will (at least you should) grow out of listening to Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Miss Taylor Swift and you will stop being a 1Directioner for life. The thing is the feelings that felt major in teenage years will seem trivial in your 20s. You will stop enjoying listening to 10 different songs about getting the girl or the boy, getting your heart broken and you will start enjoying and appreciating grown up mature songs like “I Hate You” by the great singer John Oszajca....
9. Your Style Changes
Gone are the days of experimenting with the latest fads in fashion town. You will form your own style in your 20s which will only evolve. You will not turn up as a goth one day and a then another day with your pants hanging halfway down your bum. Chances are you will start working part time while studying and your parents will not act as Santa and keep giving you as much money as they did while you were in school. Your clothing options will have strict budgetary restrictions, but it is okay since your 20s will be the last decade in your life when you will be able to get away with whatever you are wearing. You will not be allowed to show up at a meeting wearing jeans though (from what I have heard, yeah corporate bosses suck!). The completely justified and natural tendency to walk into class in your pyjamas will be thoroughly missed later (by only you).
8. You Get Away With Eating Whatever
Leftover pizza for breakfast, momos for lunch, a light evening snack of healthy French fries and a dinner made of good old pasta with a dollop of ice cream – can very well sound outrageous even for a 20 something, scratch that, for any human, but a 20 something may just as well get away with it. As you age you will realise the lack of enough fibre or presence of oily junk food anywhere in your diet at any given time of the day will be enough to give you a bad case of acidity and other complications of the nasty kind. Regular exercise, weak bones and a slowing metabolism awaits you on the other side of physical youth. Cherish the boons of longevity or die young.
7. You Get Your First Job
You get your first real job in your 20s with a proper pay and insurance. You can buy a car, lease your own place and spend the money on whatever you like. Then reality will hit you like a thousand volts electric current as you have to run around working like a cow all day every day. By the time weekend will come you will be too tired to do anything but sleep, eat buckets of ice cream and sleep some more. If you are gutsy enough then you will make time out to meet friends who will also be too tired to drink and dance. You will remain seated and just keep snarking about your boss while thinking about your bed as you caress the beer bottle in your hand.
6. You Date Someone Completely Crazy
Even in your early 20s you do not fully know who you are and what you want out of life, then why not date someone you thought you would never date in school. You may end up liking this faceless bugger or ducking through the restaurant kitchen to avoid spending one more moment with this crazy nightmare of a decision you made. To appreciate the good things in life we must experience the bad ones. Fall in love or do not fall in love. Whatever you do, remember to have as much fun as you can before settling down with the one you think is the right one. Then continue to have more fun within a scheduled weekly routine called adult life. No sane person should even contemplate marriage before at least 27, if they decide they are the marrying kind at all. And if the person is literally crazy then dump their sorry ass as soon as humanly possible and run: this applies to humans of all ages, please oblige.
5. You Take Your First Trip
This is something every 20-something should definitely do preferably before turning 25. You must take your first trip with your friends, strictly no parental guidance (of course you are allowed to call them up and tell them you did not die). Holidays with parents are one thing and trips with friends are another. You will be able to go places and have experiences which you simply cannot have with your family. Plus this would be another learning curve; you will learn to deal with unexpected situations, deal with tourist traps and have fun while you do it because you will do it with your friends. Go in a small or large group, go for a road trip or somewhere else, and enjoy the world on your own terms.
4. You Find Your Entourage
So you had a huge group of friends in school and college. You all cried and promised each other you will forever be in touch if not regularly then at least over facebook. But life will knock the wind out of you all eventually. Five or ten years down the line you may hear one person you called a friend is married with kids while the other one is on the brink of being homeless soon for his gambling addiction (what kind of people were you hanging out with anyway?). But, you will keep in touch with those few who will remain in your list of friends to call when having a 4am crisis. No matter in which corner of the world you are in you will pick up your things and go there to attend their wedding. You will find ways of letting each other know what is going on in your life and gather around boozing whenever you all happen to be in the same town while making plans to live in the same retirement home in your old age.
3. You Appreciate The True Value Of Money
Chances are now you will be moving out. Even if you choose to stay home for whatever reason (health of parents, because it is cost effective, etc.) you will see a shift in your spending habits, especially after getting a job. You will feel responsible to put in some money into the household. If you live alone you probably will survive on 2 minute noodles and late night pizza deliveries for the first few months. You will suddenly start noticing prices of things which were previously invisible to you. You will pay attention to brands of washing powder and worry about clothes you have to wash in different ways. Each penny will seem like it is deliberately trying to fly out of your hand every single day.
2. You Move Out
Everyone has to live away from family for at least a while for the first time in their 20s, provided you did not live in a boarding school. People mostly go to do their post grad studies out of state, sometimes out of country if not their under grads as well, people get their first job placements outside. This means you have total freedom to live your life the way you want. You will learn not to burn down the house eventually. You will realize there is this place called a kitchen which human beings use to cook food and a bathroom which you have to clean yourself.
1. You Are No Longer What You Were
The fact is you have started to realise you are no longer a kid. This realisation hits as soon as we are out of college. We become more responsible and in control in our 20s than we were ever before. This does not mean we should put an age limit on having fun or doing certain things. We should never tell ourselves we are too old to do something (unless you are 40 and want to date a 14 year old, that is just plain creepy and illegal you pervert; that goes even if you are 24 and you love a 12 year old, here’s looking at you Zhang Muyi and Jacob “Stephenie Meyer” Black ). You are no longer as stupid and delusional as you were in your teens and neither are you as wise as you would be in your 40s, so paint your hair blue and fly out the door (wash it before an interview please, unless you are going to work as a tattoo artist or some other creative creature).
