The Wandering Scot: When You're No Longer The Recent Graduate Class

Remember it? The sweet relief of that last exam being over. The happiness of spending the days drinking with your course mates, planning trips and saving for summer.

Then came the move home, the bittersweet goodbyes and the sharp pain as life slapped you - hard - in the face. We were graduates, it was time to live in the real world.

Now, here we are, almost a full year later. Friends from all paths of life (uni, travelling, clydesiding and school) are going though that now. Their dissertation hand in photos and "last day of uni" pictures litter my timeline, in a happy, nostalgic kind of way. I'm proud of them, and happy for them.

But it brings with it the realisation that we're no longer the recently graduated class. And has anything changed? Ha, let the panic set in...

Friends are getting married/engaged or buying houses/pets with their boyfriends/girlfriends. This is not acceptable behaviour.
The "It is time to start repaying your student loan" letter has dropped through the letterbox. Nope, that one is being ignored.
The looks you receive when mentioning a spontaneous, week-night night out. As if I have a problem or something.
Learning to live with your parents again - ugh - or if you have moved out, the whole 'council tax' thing. Ha, great, extra bills.
The 'I'm going traveling' declaration. And then realising you should have been saving for at least a year and you can't just go right then. Damn.
The insistent surveys your uni wants you to fill in, telling them what you're doing with your invaluable degree and having to tell them you're a waitress/shop assistant/sales executive.
Your family members are getting increasingly concerned that you still don't know what you want to be when you grow up. Oh, wait, I'm running out of time.
Thinking you might need to go on that date just so your love life has some semblance of structure, as the rest of your life sure doesn't.
The difficulty in organising time to see uni friends who are now scattered across the UK. You have a full time job now, you can't just take four days off.
The heartbreaking moment you realise you can't hand over your student card in a shop or at the cinema and the crushing disappointment when you see how expensive 'adult' prices are.