After four years of instant noodles, bad life choices, not enough sleep, and finals, you have finally graduated! The warm glow of summer has started to fade, the official diploma has been received, and now, I know what you might be thinking: I can just start living my dream. I will get my dream job in three months and get a cool-but-in-an-ironic-kind-of-way apartment like Monica from Friends in six months. I remember thinking the exact same thing when I graduated in 2013.

I just knew that after I graduated, I was going to be the American Margaret Atwood and live at the beach by the time I was 25. I had struggled with poverty my entire life and knew that my diploma was my golden ticket to the chocolate factory of life. However, no one told me I was more of the Augustus Gloop of my story than Charlie Bucket. I felt as though I was in way over my head in that giant chocolate pool of opportunities. The phrases, “the world is your oyster” and “now you can do anything you want” started to insight panic rather than comfort. Everyone kept telling me I had all of these opportunities and choices, but I had no idea how to attain them, how to look for them, or how to even handle them if/when I got them. So here are a few truths they don’t tell you after you graduate. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t become the American Margaret Atwood. And that’s okay.)

1. And you thought you were poor in college…

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Thought the days of Kraft mac and cheese and Circle K hot dogs were over? I am afraid not, friend; you still have some years left for that. I know student loans may still feel far away, but they aren’t. Grace periods last for months now, not years, and they sneak up on you like a crouching tiger and hidden dragon.

But I have a little hack for you: Go back to school. I know, I know. You just came from there, and it seems crazy. That said, there’s something the college counselors don’t tell you: You can extend your grace period indefinitely if you are enrolled in college for halftime. That is two classes per semester.

I did that for the first two years I was out of school. I had just gotten a 9-5 job being an assistant to the owner of a lawn care company (see, not Margaret Atwood), and I was able to take a couple of night classes at my local community college. They were easy, fun classes that eased my transition from student life to adult life, I was still able to take summers off, and I was able to gain my footing and save up some money. Oh, and the best part? Since you don’t have any money, check out your community college’s programs for fee waivers; they’ll have them, and you’ll probably qualify for them.

2. You’re about to feel pretty lonely.

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All of your friends have been in one place the majority of your life. This is especially true for college. They were just down the hall or even in the same room. Now that you have graduated, the convenience is lost forever. There will be some friends that stay in the same city or close by, but you will grow apart as time goes on. You’re trying to figure out the rest of your life and so are they.

As a result, expect it to be weird because your friendships will be in limbo for a little while. You won’t be able to see your friends every night. Instead, you’ll have to plan Saturday meetups or even schedule a vacation to see your old college roommate. But once you are all settled and so are they, there isn’t any reason that, if you both try to communicate with each other, you can’t stay close. It sounds harsh, but choose which friends are worth the lifelong effort and focus on those.

3. Everything you learned about dating in high school and college is suddenly wrong and completely useless.

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Humans go on real dates out of college, in the real world. It seems foreign and maybe old-fashioned, but the only way you’re going to form meaningful relationships is to actually talk to people in an intimate setting. You’ll begin to see that healthy, long-term relationships can be hard to find since the majority of people your age have learned all the same lessons as you about relationships, which isn’t a whole lot.

Ultimately, you’ll become much more selective and start to look for qualities in partners and even friends that were never even on your radar before. (Dependability, listening, driven, etc.) The good news is that you’ll eventually end up spending time with people who actually matter to you for the long-term.

4. You’ll be unemployed…for a while.

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I know you’ve spent years studying in high school getting ready for college so you could spend years studying to get ready for your shiny new job. Instead, you’ve spent your summer sending over 50 job applications without any luck. Now, you’re questioning why you even wasted the money going to college at all if you are now considering being a cashier at Target because you still have bills to pay even though the world won’t be giving you something it has promised. But, I want you to look at it more like an opportunity than a life-shattering grenade to the face.

I have another little hack for you: If you have the opportunity to live with your parents, get a little nothing summer job (hey, remember that one at Target?) and save. Save your butt off, and once that’s off, save your face off. Then keep some savings for a rainy day (That’s adult code for “HOLY SH*T MY CAR EXPLODED AND MY PHONE EXPLODED…AND DID YOU KNOW LIGHTS COST MONEY??!!”).

But, once you have your rainy day fund, take some of that money and do something. Really, anything. Save up for a trip to France, go camping, read all of the books you actually wanted to read, take up a hobby, or heck, watch Rugrats on Hulu and eat bag after bag of Cheetos. The point is, you’ll work your entire life. Start off small and treat yourself at the end of it.

5. A normal workday is much longer than your most jam-packed school day.

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If you do finally manage to get a job, you’ll learn another valuable lesson. Work is draining AF. You’ll look at the clock with the hope that it’s probably been at least four hours, and it’s a punch to the gut when its only been five minutes. Your office building will feel like a doorway to another dimension where everything moves five times slower. And the alien life seems to have a pull-string where all they can say are phrases like “getting all of our ducks in a row,” “I don’t have the bandwidth,” and “let’s take this offline.” You will come home exhausted, even though you felt like you really didn’t accomplish anything, and you literally sat in a chair from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Once you get an office job, always try to remember why you’re doing this. Want to go to brunch on the weekends? Would you like to get a dog? Grow your savings? Take a trip once you’ve built up that vacation time? That is what your job is paying for. You’re most likely not going to be passionate about your first job, or even your second or third, but you can be passionate about the opportunities for a fuller life that your paycheck affords you. (Try to remember that when you look at your first paycheck and learn about taxes. No, you think you know about taxes, but you don’t.)

6. You will feel sad and perpetually “meh” for some time after you graduate. That’s normal.

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After over a decade in school, that part of your life is done. Let that sink in. Confusion, depression, or even anger are all emotions you are entitled to feel when a huge part of your life is suddenly over, especially when you might not have been ready. No, you definitely weren’t ready. That’s okay. And it is not okay in the sense that you’re a snowflake and haters bounce off you like a force-field. I mean it’s okay because everyone goes through that when they graduate.

Ultimately, it is an exciting change, but you are saying goodbye to one of your oldest friends: school. It afforded you the ability not to give a single F about hardly anything adult, and it was a safe place for you to grow up and make some friends. People told me I would feel sad, and I was just so happy to graduate that I didn’t believe them. Also, sadness wasn’t what I was seeing on social media and TV. Young people with jobs were fabulous! But, in reality, it’s a time for reflection and saying goodbye. It’ll pass, and you’ll be fine.

7. Fake it till you make it is actually pretty good advice.

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No one truly expects you to have it all figured out, but they do expect you to act like you do anyway. (I’ll let you in on a little secret: everyone does that forever, no one has anything figured it, and we are all lost children in adult bodies.) You will learn this lesson quickly when you look around and think that all of your coworkers, friends, partners, and even your enemies have life down to a science.

Well, underneath that cool exterior, they are dying a little bit inside, too. They are screaming and floundering like Gloop in that chocolate river. It’s all okay; accept that no one knows what the hell they’re doing (including your parents by the way), and just try your best anyway.

8. Having to live with your parents is going to be both worse and better than high school. (But it will mostly feel worse.)

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Even if you have a job, there is a high probability you will go back home and live with your parents. After four years of skipping around like an adult with no rules, you will now be forced to live with the same people that told you not to eat all of your Halloween candy in one night and not to leave your socks beside the hamper.

This new living arrangement is obviously not the ideal, glamours adult life you had in mind. But look at the positives: home-cooked meals, fresh laundry, no rent, and unlimited internet. Enjoy it while you have the opportunity because, one day, your parents would also like to start living their best lives, and that doesn’t include their adult kid sleeping in their new home theater.

9. If you land your dream job, you might realize you actually hate it.

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That job you dreamed about all through college? Yeah, it wasn’t all it seemed to be, and you don’t feel the same way about it anymore. It’s happened to me on multiple occasions, and it’ll happen again. It seems like the disappointment will engulf you. But don’t worry; it won’t, and you’ll get over it. You have a lot of time to figure out what you want to do with your life. Try new things, or try new jobs you think you wouldn’t like before, and, at the end of the day, you might be glad you did.

10. And finally, when adulting doesn’t suck, it can be really fun.

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No more homework! And the guilt you feel for not caring about what someone says or does and pretending like you do is looooong gone. People will judge you all the time. It’s just something that carries over from high school. It’s cool, though, because you don’t have to care anymore. Go home, close the door, grab a glass of wine, and watch two hours straight of Friends in your underwear because hey, you can.

You’re an adult: you can say no to that party, you don’t have to call back, and you can stand up for yourself at work. When you finally take that first vacation and don’t have the pressure of two midterms and a paper looming over you, you can enjoy yourself fully and freely. After all, you’ve earned it.