you will in fact continue to have acne past the age of twenty
you will eventually hit a point where you start to feel icky inside if you go too long without eating some sort of vegetables
depending on your current level of athleticism/physical activity as well as the kind of activities you did as a kid/teenager, your joints may start acting whack in your twenties, despite what everyone says about that not happening until middle age
eventually you will reach a point where you wonder how you were able to stay up until 3am nearly every night and be perfectly fine the next day (and this moment will come much younger than you expect)
it is much harder to meet new people after you’re done with school than sitcoms would have you believe
don’t let society tell you shit: it is perfectly acceptable to live with your parents after you graduate, there’s no need to be broke and miserable just so you can have some misguided attempt at independence straight out of school
aging in general will catch up to you much sooner than you think. you’ll notice your first grey hairs ~25. crows feet appear when you smile ~30. aging is a slow and gradual process that’s happening throughout your life, including your 20’s. it’s not like an Old switch flips when you turn 40, any more than a Puberty switch flipped when you turned 13.
same thing with not being Cool anymore. you’ll be vibing one day and suddenly media is saying your favorite style of jeans or hairstyle “date” you. (on the up side, you probably won’t care about that kind of thing anymore.)
taking care of your body and your home is Relentless. nobody will make you do chores or eat your veggies. it can wear at you if you let it. setting and keeping good habits lessens the strain.
measuring success is harder as an adult. in school you get graded most days, sports are measured in points. feedback at work regarding performance will be largely arbitrary. nobody can tell you if you’re on the right track to raise children into well-adjusted adults (though there’s plenty of conflicting advise out there). are you happy? how happy?
outside of some obscene luck, you probably won’t build the life you want at the speed you want. that’s normal.
you don’t have to stop liking “kid” stuff when you grow up. if you can still like ice cream or sports, you can also still like disney or nerf guns.
you’re gonna have a favorite burner on your stove.
You will start to genuinely enjoy those ‘boring’ gifts like socks or hand soap (because now you don’t have to buy socks or hand soap)
It’s not the bending over for an extended period of time that’s gonna get you, it’s the standing back up after that’s gonna throw out your back. Take your time
STRETCH. Just do it. It will save, do you a world of good when stuff starts feeling stiff/breaking down.
NEVER dismiss health concerns that are really fucking with your life. and NEVER put off things like important medical things such as CT scans and scopes (endoscopies for me) until it’s too late- take it from me ….who had to get a 5x5 tumour removed from her stomach in 2020… where i spent 8 hours in surgery (due to my surgeon finding mid surgery that the tumour had progressed to growing near my kidneys… when the surgery was originally estimated to be TWO (2) HOURS) amonth in the icu and two more months in hospital (almost dying twice… also, this was originally calculated to be TWO (2) WEEKS) after that. then, I spent an entire year healing in 2021.
i learnt it the hard way, so you don’t have to… and not right after your birthday, like me in 2020 at 25. finally, the type of surgery I had came with a lifelong medication to properly digest food, as well. DO NOT put ANY preliminary scans or scopes off EVER.
