Life After School, or, How to Be a Grown-Up

(For Rachel)

Since you don’t think anything has changed in the one whole entire week since you graduated from college, let me assure you that it will.

It’s already different for you than it was for me, because you’re starting life with a husband. You’re completely out of your parents’ house and making your own home together (whereas all my future husbands married other women, leaving me to fall in love with fictional heroes and gay celebrities. At least they don’t cost much).

When I graduated from college, Mom (your grandmother) picked me up and drove me back to her new house in Louisiana, so I didn’t even have my old high-school friends around for mutual support. Mom did get me a job interview with one of her friends, an education consultant, so at least I had (minimum wage) employment. It is very good to get your first real job any way you can.

It didn’t last, so I did sort of bounce around until I found graduate school and a real profession. You don’t have to bounce, and you don’t have to go to graduate school. Just keep your mind busy. You’ll keep learning even without school.

You want tangible suggestions, so here goes:

1. Volunteer or get an internship. Pick a business or organization that looks like it could use some help and offer to do whatever you can. When you get there, do more. Always be willing to pitch in. “Let me do that for you” is my favorite employee expression.

2. Read for at least an hour a day. You need the quiet time, and you need to focus on something unrelated to your daily routine. History is good; biographies of inspiring people are good. Don’t waste your brain on “just for entertainment” trashy kind of reading. (Exception: Anything by P.G. Wodehouse. You know I love me some Jeeves stories!)

3. Once a week, try a kind of food you’ve never had before. The supermarket is full of unusual stuff, and they’ll often have free recipe cards nearby. Buy only a little in case you don’t like it (or so you don’t eat too much of it if you do).

4. You can talk to strangers now! You know how (and whom). Ask questions. Figure out, as soon as you possibly can, what you have in common. Even the most “opposite” strange new person you come across will have something you can relate to.

5. Get the Sunday newspaper. (Yes, the print edition.) Open it up and spread it out all over the floor and find at least one whole article to read. (You were a business major, so go for the business section first.) You’re probably getting most of your news headlines already just by getting on the computer, but an in-depth, well-researched, written, and edited article is worth paying some attention to.

6. Start saving money. Your grandma’s trick: Each week, deduct (without withdrawing) $10 or $20 from your checking account and record the amount somewhere else. If you don’t see it, you don’t spend it. After six months, you can turn your “set aside” money into a CD or a savings bond or even start investing it (your dad can talk to you about that if he hasn’t already).

7. Stretch. You don’t need yoga or pilates classes; just do slow stretching moves on every part of you that can be stretched. Then move: walk, run, swim, bike, dance. Then cool down by stretching a little more.

8. Be outdoors at least part of the day.

9. Daydream. No time limit, but no multitasking. It is not good to daydream while you’re talking to strangers (number 4 above).

10. Call your folks once a week. But you’d do that anyway.

That’s probably more “advice” than anyone can tolerate. You want to keep your hands busy, too, so I have a couple of projects to send you.

And by the way, you don't have to call me "Aunt" anymore. We're both adults.

love and "turtle waves" back at you!