Why I hate being 24

I hate being 24 because...
1. All the super awesome birthdays (16, 18, 21) are behind me, but not so far behind me that I can't remember them.
2. All my years of school are done. All those adults out there who said stay in school as long as you can because it's easier and more fun, you were dead on. I miss school, the ease of it, the friends, the classes, the work even- so much more rewarding than real life.
3. I hate still living with my parents. I know it's much more common these days to return home for a bit before getting your feet on the ground, but I've lived in LA all on my own, Wales all on my own, gotten two degrees and traveled the world... and it just feels like a failure, super pathetic, to be camping out with my parents.
4. I hate having to work retail, or better yet, two part time jobs and still not being able to make ends meet. This makes me sound snobby, and perhaps I am, but I have a MASTERS degree- I should not be selling books to undereducated high school students who wouldn't know Shakespeare from Nicholas Sparks and who only want Stephenie Meyers. God help us all.
5. I hate being back in my home state and in the mountains no less, my least favorite part of home. I hate seeing all the people who knew me when I was little and knowing that they witnessed some of my most embarrassing moments. Uck.
6. I hate going to my dad's house and passing my old high school, my old stomping grounds. It reminds me of all the people I would happily avoid for the rest of my life, the people that I still, after all these years away from them, want to impress. I want to be bigger, better, more famous, more powerful, etc than all of them. Not that it matters, but I do.
7. I hate not having a plan. Going to India in a month and a half and then what? I don't know what I want to start applying for, I don't know where I want to live, I don't know what I want to do to make my life more interesting and more worthwhile. I don't know if I can come up with something more important and worthwhile so I don't want to rip my hair out all the time.
8. I hate that I've wanted to be a writer for so long I couldn't even tell you when it first entered my head and I still haven't written a complete book. I know I'm good, perhaps not stellar, and I am so frustrated with my own personal lack of perseverance that it makes me want to write even less. Argh.
9. I hate not having a boyfriend or a romantic interest. People around me are getting married, having babies, buying houses and while I know, logically, that I chose a different path and that ultimately I'm happy that I got to travel and get lots of degrees and meet tons of new people, it still makes me wish I'd stayed home, found me a guy, had me a baby. Because I want children. I'm old fashioned female like that.
10. And finally, I hate that I feel like I'm floundering. I hate that I'm not the only one out there like this, that my entire generation is so in the trash that so many of us have to return home, that so many of us have to work two horrible sucky jobs that demean us, that so many of us are desperate for something, anything, else. I wish someone had sat me down, and perhaps they did and I just ignored them, and said, "REAL LIFE IS A BITCH. It's hard and confusing and complicated and not all that your dreams are making it out to be. You'll feel small and insignificant and worthless for a good chunk of it and if you're not too smart, this may not bother you too much. But if you are, and you're always wanting more, real life is going to SUCK. You're welcome."