There is a first time for everything. And since I’ve graduated, I’ve been waiting for the first time my college ID would no longer work for a discount at the bar. My mixed feelings of excitement and reduced pride lingered, but I was confident most of the students wouldn’t even know who I was. That means, for one Thursday night, I could play pretend and listen to the slutty little angel sitting on my shoulder.

Me and a few girlfriends put on our highest heels and tightest jeans, teased out our hair, chugged a glass of wine and strut our stuff downtown. For the first time, I felt a hint of cougar status brew in my insides. I was only a year older than most of the people in the bar…aside from the 18-year-old freshman busting in with fake IDs. But we all promised ourselves that this was only an experiment — to hands-on discover how much we’d grown up in the past year. Right?

We waltzed into the bar feeling young, fresh and slightly secret detective-esque. Our mission was activated. (That being Mission: Let’s stick out our boobs and pretend we like sticky bar receipts and regrets). Oddly, the first realization of the evening was that I’d never noticed the smell of the bar: stale, pungent beer. The music was insanely loud, the men boys were sweaty and drunk. The girls were sexed up like a ton of horny toads (hint: exposed zippers, leather and heels). And as we did the first crowd scan, I felt more alive than I had since I got 13 hours of sleep the night before. I had forgotten how invigorating a college night out could be.

We bought some shots and started “doing rounds” across the bar. Then, we did another shot and giggled when it dribbled down our chins. How rookie of us graduates! Side Note: The shots were shooters. Straight vodka sounded like a living nightmare. Once we were thoroughly buzzed, we took to the dance floor and observed. After making a rough estimate of the babies that were going to be created after last call, we were offered drinks by a young man wearing a college sweatshirt and a spray tan. #Winning

The night was panning out pretty well, until I spotted a freshman (now sophomore) that I had “accidentally” hooked up with last year on a flimsy whim. Needless to say, we re-located to the other bar. I couldn’t stand to face the young man who farted on my leg the morning I woke up on his futon. I wish I were kidding.

As the night wore on, everyone reached “I’m drunk and no longer know where I am status.” My girlfriends and I were still going off the little buzz we had gained from our shooter shots and watched with pleasure. The 3am hook-ups unraveling, the girl-on-girl arguments taking course, group shots, sloppy final dances…all of it was there. It was then, as I was standing along the bar with heavy eyes and a light heart, that I noticed something.

I had experienced this all before. And I had experienced it well. All four years of my college experience were this. And that was the perfect amount. Like a little college ghost spirit, the yearning for terribly hungover mornings and exceedingly dramatic dances with sweaty boys, had left. All I needed to arrive at this realization was one night back in the game. I smiled to myself as someone spilled a warm beer on my shoulder. As happy as I had been to take it all in during college, it was OK to leave it all behind. For mature things like late night wine binges at home, blogging, getting up early for coffee and having an entire hangover-free day for productive activities (i.e. grown up things).

As my girlfriends and I walked out of the bar and searched high and low for a taxi, we huddled in a group and decided life was moving in the right direction. With, or without hardcore college parties.

Mission accomplished.

Let’s face it: we all make stupid decisions. Like choosing a fifth over a review session, or bringing that guy home…who stole our iPod in the morning. That’s part of college life… and a big part of what makes it so memorable. But there are some choices that have longer lasting repercussions; things we do now that will haunt us later.

So here are the 11 things from your 20’s you will most definitely regret when you’re 40.

11. Risque Internet Photos: What’s the point of having technology if you can’t use it to send a naughty pre-shower photo to your BF? Nothing will turn him on quite like a naked photo popping up in his inbox while he’s brushing up on his Stats knowledge. You trust him, so what’s the worst that could happen? How about a break up? Or the “forward” button? No matter what you think, those photos are going to come back and bite you in the (naked-with-a-spot-of-cellulite) ass. Just show him the real thing and let him turn to his imagination (or internet porn) for a mid-class pick me up.

10. Trendy Tats: You totally love butterflies/stars/unicorns now, but I can bet money that you won’t want them plastered on the top of your foot or your lower back forever. No one wants to see a mom with a rose tattoo on her left shoulder, so think before you ink.

9. Choosing guys over your girls: You get caught up in your relationship sometimes and blow off the girls. Fine, we get it. But when sometimes turns into “What the hell ever happened to Mary?” there is a problem. Especially when Mr. Douche Bag finally breaks up with you and you come crawling back to the girls with a tub of Edy’s and a box of tissues and they aren’t there to wipe the snot from your cheek. Do you really want to spend the rest of your days holed up in a dirty apartment watching your man play Rock Band and chug Natty Light? Learn the balance, honey.

8. Getting married too young: I’ve seen it too many times – people graduate, freak out and hold onto whatever they can of their youth. And they get married.  And become super lame married people. It may be pure bliss now (and lots and lots of kitchen-ware), but just think about all the awesome stuff you will miss by being tied down in your twenties, all that freedom: to travel when you want, to take a job wherever you want, to sleep with whomever you want, to party as late as you want, to discover yourself, to sleep with whomever you want…. Plus, do you really want pictures of your friends doing keg stands in your wedding album? I thought not.

7. Smoking: Mmmm tobacco. It feels so good when it hits (and consequently blackens) your lungs. Especially after you’ve had a few Rum and Diets. And you look so cool doing it. But you know what doesn’t feel good? Chemo. And you know what doesn’t look cool? Your wrinkley face or your kids stealing the pack from your tobacco stained purse and trying it for the first time. When they are 6. This sh*t will kill you, so stop it. Right now! Seriously, put down that Marlboro Light, sister.

6. Not traveling enough: Trust me on this one – you will never have the time, money or freedom to travel like you do now.  Pretty soon you’ll be working late nights and counting down the minutes until the that will be chock full of grocery runs and Bed, Bath and Beyond trips. Try finding time in that busy schedule to jet-set to Europe and “find yourself.” Pack your bags and see the world now, before you’re too old to experiment with drugs in Amsterdam and enjoy a ping pong show in Bangkok.  Pick up a travel book and start planning!

5. Bad Credit: You can’t live without that Coach bag right now. You just have to have that DVF dress for the date party. Everyone else has an iPhone and you want one too. You’ll just charge it and worry about it later, right? Wrong, bitches. Ruining your credit now on stupid stuff (yes, I am telling you that bag is a stupid investment) will totally eff things up for you in the future. Things like getting a house, a car, a boyfriend (bad credit is a total turn-off) and sometimes even a job. Spend wisely, ladies. That bag is going to be out of style in .25 seconds anyway.

4. Not finishing school: Do we really even need to mention this one? Could you think of anything you’d regret more when you are 40 and working the checkout lane at your neighborhood Wal-mart? That is, assuming, you can even get that job in this economy.

3. Pre-vacation tanning: You tell yourself that you just want to get a base tan before Spring Break in Cabo. Sure, you will look fiiiine in that white shift dress for the 6 days after you return, but that wrinkley, skin cancer-ed mess is not going to look so hot when you’re 40 and you look like a Sharpei.

2. Stilettos: Part of becoming a woman is rockin’ the hottest pair of the highest heels. They make your legs look sick (that’s a good thing), make the men beg, and your jeans are too long to wear with anything lower. Why wouldn’t you wear them? I’ve got one hyphenated word for you: hammer-toes. You want to spend the later part of your life looking at that in a sandal?  Make your Feet Happy with these ultra comfy and cute socks..

(Editor’s note: I was going to put a picture of a gross foot here, but you Google “gross feet in sandals” and tell me how it makes you feel.)

1. “It feels better without condoms” sex: You’ll probably regret this one right off the bat as you spend your senior year chasing a kid around the dorms, but you’ll seriously regret it later when you look back at your life and realize how much you missed out on because you were busy changing diapers and bouncing a kid on your knee. Oh, and no one likes a woman with a bumpy vagina. I’m just sayin’; those genital warts will never go away.

What if I had gone to another college? What if I had majored in psychology? What if I’m one of those people who don’t know they’re pregnant until they go into labor at nine months and discover their baby has 13 fingers and tentacles because their mother took a shot every time she asked herself what if?

What if I had taken a different internship last summer, seduced the boss, and then been able to blackmail him into getting me a job. What if the love of my life lives in the past and we spend the rest of our lives communicating only through a mailbox at a lake house (do they have to play that movie every single weekend??). What if I end up getting hired at my dream job and realize that I hate it?

What if my friends/family have been lying for the past 22 years about me being tone deaf because they knew if I really knew how good my voice was I would be the greatest singer this world has ever seen and I would never speak to them again except through the press? What if I never get a job in New York and I have to move home and face all my former high school acquaintances and explain why I’m living in the place I swore I would never live?

What if I’m not good at the job that I just spend the last four years preparing for? What if my parents had considered my future plans and goals and had become professionals in the television industry and hooked me up with a job right now? What if I didn’t have to be worried every time I answered a job on Craigslist and was told my headshot and bra size was need for further job consideration?

What if I could just be one of those people who could just chill and go with the flow and not spend their nights composing long lists of unanswerable what if’s?

Considering the fact that I’ve done nothing but sulk (with the occasional break for a anxiety panic attack over my future) since graduation, it’s relatively amazing that I was able to find time in my self despair to write this blog. Graduating college is worse than I ever imagined. Probably because I always imagined going straight from graduation to an awesome job with an awesome apartment in an awesome city. (Thank you, Lauren Conrad!)

Instead I’m sitting at home covered in hummus (I couldn’t find the pita chips so I’ve just been eating it straight) yelling at my sister to answer the damn phone. I can’t take that old-fashioned landline ringing.

My mother’s turned into a hovercraft and a social butterfly. She spends half her time leaving me alone on the couch to go out with friends (pray tell, when did she attain those?) and the other half asking me what would make me feel better. To which I answer, “Umm I would like you to build a time machine and transport me right back to the part of Freshman year where it stopped being awkward.” So far she has failed at this task. She has one more week to reach success before I give her the next “make me feel better task” of finding me a job.

My father (notice how much focus is on my parents…because I have no friends anymore), on the other hand, expects me to all of a sudden make adult decisions. One day he’s asking me to find new health insurance because I’m no longer covered and the next he’s reminding me how I’m financially independent now. Health Insurance? You might as well tell me to learn how to do quantum physics. I don’t know why he thinks my diploma gave me the skills to be able to care for myself and make life-altering decisions. It was accomplishment enough that I walked across the stage without tripping.

But I’m doing my best to ignore him. He would probably tell you I sleep 23 hours a day because everytime he talks to me I pretend to fall into a deep unwake-able sleep. Instead I constantly reload my Facebook and comb through graduation albums. I go through my friends in search of pictures to print out in black and white and hang poster-size in my room. I go through acquaintances to find people I know in the crowd and tag them. It’s always hilarious to tag only one person in a giant crowd. And this is how I plan to entertain myself for the rest of the summer.

Wow, this sucks.

Come back every Tuesday as we follow (and commiserate with) Jenni on her quest to navigate life after college.

[Photo courtesy of blstb.msn.com]

I was getting by on around 4 or 5 hours a sleep a night and I was doing it without caffeine. I had straight A’s and…a lot of my friends openly hated this about me. I was a nonstop go-getter, over-achieving on minimal sleep before I even had my driver’s license. When I was 16, I launched my own handbag line and my shows became more steady. By the time I was 17, I had a serious boyfriend to throw into the mix as well as a ‘real’ job, a position running the choir, and college application stress. Yet, I was still going strong, riding on an ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead‘ slogan.

I graduated high school and I moved to the city where I belonged — where everyone else was as ridiculously high strung as I was — NYC. Matters with sleep just got worse with college. I was taking 19 credits my first semester, working, and playing shows in the city. When I had to leave my very over-priced college, I made the conscious decision to NOT move back home and to get my own place in the city (opposed to the dorm rooms) instead. With ‘real world’ expenses hitting me at the age of 19, I knew I had to make it work somehow or another.

I picked up a full time job, started teaching part time on the side, and transferred to a cheaper school — which I attended full time. During this time, I started a band which quickly took over my life. Sleep became a joke to me. It was a thing of my childhood that, to be honest, didn’t even interest me. People would always conversationally combat my lifestyle by proclaiming their love for sleep, as if I didn’t ENJOY it. Of course I enjoyed sleep! Who doesn’t? I just had better things to do, that’s all.

I never got carded much at bars, even when I was underage. I credit part of this to the fact that I’ve always ‘come off’ as older to people. I also credit part of this to my suspicion that I probably just LOOKED older, more tired, more stressed…

My non-stop lifestyle continued until I finished college last year. I had a brief stint as a marketing director for a company, in an office, before deciding that I wanted to freelance from home. I still play shows and have 10,000 business endeavors always running at once. I still have friends. But now I wake up whenever I choose to. And I always sleep for at least 8 hours a night. Because I can. After I’d been working on this schedule for a few months, I saw a friend who I hadn’t seen in around 6 months. She stopped me and said, “You’re….glowing!”

I brushed her off, thinking she was just trying to flatter me.

“No, seriously. You look….younger, Elizabeth” she continued.

And then it hit me. She was right. Sleep DOES make a difference.

I’m more relaxed these days than I ever was before. I guess making your own schedule and not really having a ‘boss’ will do that to a person…but I think sleeping the right amount also will do that to a person. Maybe it was the last 10 years of nonstop work that put me in this current position….or maybe it as me finally being willing to chill out and take life one day at a time. I’m not sure. But I’m younger looking now, feel more energized, and am more focused than I’ve ever been. And I’d put money on the fact that I’m healthier, too.