Everything a 25-Year-Old Knows

(in the year 2020)

This is everything a 25-year-old knows:

Jobs are a thousand times easier than school
You and your high school friends probably aren’t close
Try to avoid nicotine as a rule
You actually need only like three pairs of shoes
- And maybe a fourth pair to wear when it rains
Money is harder to gain than lose
Weight is much harder to lose than to gain
- In fact, you’ll gain weight for the rest of your life!
- (Try to accept this as fact if you can)
Brady was right, we just all want a wife¹
- Someone to cook and to clean and to plan
- To file the taxes and shop for the food
- Remember to do the cat’s flea medication
Most people are selfish
Most people are good
When someone’s upset, they just need validation
You thought you got over your acne – surprise!
Two drinks a night’s not enough/it’s too much
American history is almost all lies
When you’re in quarantine, how you’ll crave human touch!
You cannot keep all of the memories you make
Life’s very short, a third of it’s gone
- Maybe it’s only a fourth, give or take
- But nothing else you’ll ever do is as long

And that’s the sum total of all that I know.
To learn about more things, I’ll just have to wait.
But as I continue to change and to grow,
At least I know some things. And that’s kinda great.

‘I Want a Wife,’ by Judy Brady Syfers: New York mag, 1971 ↩︎