Things you can still get away with before your 30s

When I was 18 and just living on my own and my life was a pretty big mess and I preferred to avoid obligations, I always thought, “in 5 years I’ll have everything under control.” Now I’m 26 and that’s still not the case, but I tell myself, “when I’m 30, then it will be fine.” When you’re 30, you’re grown up and mature I like to lie to myself and there are things I really need to stop doing or else it will never be okay. So, for everyone under 30, these are things you can still get away with now, but not later.

Having no idea how your health insurance works

I receive health care allowance every month and know that I’m with VGZ, but that’s about all I can say. I postpone visits to the doctor as long as possible because I have no idea how to “claim something on my health insurance” and the letters that come in about premiums and policies go unopened into the pile of mail. This brings me to the next point.

Especially blue envelopes and things that say ABN AMRO I put in a pile “to go through properly one day” but I never do and then I end up with a much bigger problem. I let bills go through automatic debit as much as possible because otherwise I just won’t do it. Jet also, by the way, “I only pay when I get a reminder.”

Saving? What? Are you crazy, buying shoes! When I have a few hundred euros left at the end of the month, I think “whoa chill I can still eat out three times” instead of “oh handy I’ll put that in my savings account.” I’m reasonably aware of what comes in but I have absolutely no idea what goes out and how much I have left. That’s fun, but that has to stop at some point. When I’m 30.

I work as a freelancer and therefore don’t build up a pension, have no disability insurance, no vacation days, and no vacation pay. Basically, if I don’t work for a day because I’m sick, I don’t earn money, if I want to go on vacation for two weeks, I only have half a month’s salary. If I break my arm, I can’t write and then I’m really screwed. When I’m 67, there’s no pot or anything I can live off. But I’m really not going to worry about that for the next 4 years.

This week I was still under the weather because I looked like something that had been dead for half a year and after 20 minutes I felt reborn and now I look significantly better. The fact that I’ll get wrinkles and cancer from that are things I can’t worry about “because I’m living now.” I once had a sister-in-law who was a dermatologist and she would get furious when she heard that there are still people who go to the tanning bed and I always wisely kept my mouth shut. The tanning bed is a kind of bank of death, I know that very well, but I’ll only worry about that later.

Yes, very boring, but there comes a point where you just can’t get away with going to bed drunk three times a week anymore. Especially because your body just can’t handle it anymore. I was at ADE last weekend two nights in a row home at 07:30 and I suffered from that until Tuesday, while three years ago I stayed awake for all of ADE without any problems and then still started the week on Monday whistling.

The first two years (I’m lying, it was the first 5 years) that I lived alone, I lived on toast with salmon, pita bread with cheese, and thuisbezorgd.nl. The pans I bought back then are still as good as new and some still have the stickers on them. I’m not a cook. Not at all. Since I started working at Amayzine and especially since Jet has been passing her healthy vibe onto me, I’ve been found in the kitchen more often, but it’s still not worth writing home about. But I do think there comes a point where you just have to be able to put a healthy warm meal on the table for four people.

The times I’ve panicked and shoved all the mess into a cupboard because I had visitors are countless. I live right in the center so friends are always nearby and when they suggest coming over for a cozy visit, I often lied that I wasn’t home purely because it was such a total exploded filthy pigsty. The only thing that’s always (almost always) tidy is my bed, I make it very neatly every morning. “You’re so schizophrenic in your cleaning habits” says May-Britt, and that’s true. For now, in four years that will be over and I’ll be very straightforward in my cleaning habits: everything will be tidy.