8 Things Every Early Girl In Her Early 20s Should Know
1. Putting old parking tickets on your car actually works.
Foooooreal. Like I’m not even kidding. Two years without a parking pass and still going strong thanks to those 3 parking tickets I’ve gotten.
2. Alcohol doesn’t fix the problem.
….it makes you text your ex or act on whatever actually IS the problem. I used to chase anything that would make me feel numb to the pain, only to wake up the next morning feeling that pain had grown to be 100 times worse than it originally would. Every time I took a sip, I was just re-opening a wound I’d spent so much time trying to close. It has ruined relationships that meant the world to me. Yeah, drinking is fun, but only if you’re doing it for the right reasons.
3. Don’t date boys.
Seriously. If anything. Just don’t. Like yeah, love is cool and fun but I truly believe that this is the time in your life where you can do literally whatever you want and it can’t be judged. Wake up one morning and decide to dye your hair purple or get on the train to Chicago or wherever. Don’t let anyone — especially a college boy who drinks too much vodka — hold you back just because you guys have the same taste in music and he makes you laugh at 4am after you’ve had one too many.
4. Frozen meals are heavenly.
This literally screams LAAAAAZZYYY. And yeah. I’m lazy. Frozen meals are my savior, and if it wasn’t for them I’d most likely starve 99.9% of the time. They save you. People who are sketched out by frozen meals are missing out. 5 minutes for stir fry or chicken and all I have to do is put it in the microwave?!
5. Being selfish is necessary
This kinda goes with the whole no dating thing. If someones gonna hold you back, forget them. This may be scary, and this may mean breaking off a friendship with someone who means the world to you, but if they’re constantly filling you with negative thoughts or keeping you from doing what’s right for you, they don’t need to be in your life. This may leave you with few friends, but in my opinion I’d rather have a few awesome people in my life than a ton of people who aren’t there to make me happy.
6. Making people’s days is actually awesome.
It could just be giving them a piece of chocolate and saying “yo, I like your scarf today,” or making them something, but making other people happy makes you happy. Try it. Smile at someone, compliment them. Tell your best friend how much they mean to you, call your mom. It seriously feels great.
7. Be straightforward.
I’m still struggling with this one a little bit. I’m timid and shy at times, but I truly believe that being straightforward with people is so refreshing and it will make them respect you that much more because you’re giving them no bullshit. A relationship I had with someone I cared a lot about ended because I wasn’t straightforward with them, and I wish I would have been. Text that guy that you think is cute and tell him you think he’s cute. Text your ex and tell them how sorry you are and that you wish it could have worked out, that you wish you could be with them right now in bed, taking about whatever you used to talk about. Tell your friend you don’t really feel like hanging out right now instead of making them deal with you being a butt face when you hang out because you didn’t really want to hang out with them in the first place.
8. Journaling and reading helps.
I love to read. I seriously think it helps with all aspects of your life. Schoolwork, relationships, self-discovery. It expands your vocabulary and that one poem you read in that book may describe exactly how you’re feeling about that one person right now, or how you feel about yourself. I love to escape from the real world and paint a picture on my head. I think journaling can do the same thing. Write when you’re drunk and crying, write when you can’t stop smiling. Look back and remember why you felt that way when you wrote that. Release exactly what you’re feeling with no repercussions.