girlinshirt.

Misconceptions of your twenty-somethings.

In turning another miserable year older I took a step back and thought ‘holy shit y’all…I’m mid-twenties & it isn’t anything like the movies said! LIFE I DEMAND A REFUND’. Because REALLY?! Is this a joke? These are supposed to be the years I attend fancy parties & have men banging down my door wanting to throw money & shoes & engagement rings at me. It’s supposed to be exhausting in the way that you come home to your West Elm decorated loft in the city and toss your perfectly coordinated, mermaid haired, silken dress wearing self dramatically in your bed and think “Yes. This is why I persevered for so long & acquired all of that student debt! LIFE RULES’. Well if you’re like me you’re currently listening to 90s emo music with a grease bun, smelling like marinara sauce (when was the last time you even ate that, though??) & your mid-twenties are full of numerous misconceptions.

·         “COLLEGE DEGREE. Your life is gonna be gravy from now on!”. You busted through the doors of your graduation, diploma in hand, screaming “FINALLY! Never again will I work retail! Salary, benefits, all the money! Here I come, world!”. Now you’re waiting tables or folding tee-shirts that you can’t even afford yourself in an Urban Outfitters.  When rejection emails from perspective jobs are considered the kindest gesture you’ve had all week since most everyone else just ignores you & the cover letter you spent hours working on.  Your successful friends can suck it and if they talk about their beautiful 9-5 in their office with 6ft windows one more time, you might have to throw yourself in front of the nearest moving vehicle.

·         ‘Every Weekend is a Fancy Party’.  Well we’re all too poor & emotionally invested in The Real Housewives to go anywhere. I mean, I’ve drank whiskey I found opened in a Laundromat once…(that was a good time actually). Truth is, once college ends, we’re all too lazy & tired to leave the confines of our snuggies on a Friday night. Not to mention when you pass the age of twenty-three getting schwasted is more of a ‘look at your life, look at your choices’ moment & less of a ‘Oh boy let me tell you my hilarious & cool story about body shots & boys’. More like “I texted the person I’m in relationship limbo with my true feelings & ate Chinese food on my kitchen floor & woke up to vomit & pound Excedrin & self loathe”.

·         ‘You Are at Peak Attractiveness!’. Okay this one is certainly not false. The sad truth is that my body will never be this tight, my boobs will never be this perky, and it’s all down-hill from here. Yeah sure you grew out of your acne or your birth control finally helped you out. You learned how to polish the turd that is yourself! Congrats! Let’s be real though, now that I’m older it all feels like WORK. I huff & puff to my curling iron & grimace at the idea of putting makeup on. I know the results will be good & I’m sure as hell going to document it to prove that I’m not always a sweatpants troll but WHY IS IT SO EXHAUSTING? People have pitied me in grocery stores & pointed me to the cold medicines. No thank you ma’am I am actually not diseased. This is just my face.

·         “Men. Everywhere.”.  The most comical notion we all had. I barely need to expand on this. Men have not & never will mentally age past nineteen years old & mid-twenties men are the most arduous, dumbasses to ever live. When you realize they are so disgusting, yet they are dressing better, have way better hair, and smell so good. Buy me a drink, you foul creature! This will begin months of drunk texting you & creeping your facebook so I can infer what every nuance, status, everything means until I blast Adele & hate all. Getting a man to even say they like you is about as hard as you thought getting an engagement ring would be. Happy couples on facebook while you’re eating an entire bucket of ice cream with your cat make you want to throw your laptop across the earth. ‘I’m fine! I don’t need a man! I will just spawn in my thirties!’. Oh the lies…BLATANT LIES we all tell ourselves & our equally emotionally cold & bitter hag friends always corroborate.  Yes, men are everywhere, but more as an infestation & less like a gift.

The worst part is knowing that you have your late twenties to look forward to. When shit is no different you just look & feel 100 years older & will probably drink a lot (A LOT) more wine.