Nineteen Years and Counting

Turning nineteen is like turning eleven. After all the hype and hoopla about the previous year’s birthday (double digits are a pretty big deal), reaching the next year is about as exciting as reading five chapters of my advertising textbook (which I know firsthand from the all-nighter I pulled last night is not fun at all) . For the past four years, I’ve been reaching milestones, and I didn’t even have to do anything but age to achieve them. My fifteenth birthday meant I could legally drive with a licensed driver over the age of twenty-one, as long as we were back before midnight, of course. Sixteen brought with it driving freedom, and it just sounds mature and exciting. A less exciting, but still monumental, year later, my seventeenth birthday granted me free reign at the movie theater. Even though I’ve never been carded, it’s nice to know that I can legally watch soft-core porn and listen to as many explicatives as I see fit. Finally, my eighteenth birthday signaled a whole new chapter of my life: I was officially an adult, but I had the luxury of having –teen attached to the end of my age. Tattoo parlors can deny me no more, and if I’m feeling lucky, I can squander the $4.53 that make up my checking account on some Mega Millions. So, with no new freedoms bestowed to me this year, I’ve decided to celebrate this year for what it means in the grand scheme of things, because next year, it’s a big deal.

It felt as if I had been eighteen forever, and sometimes, I found myself thinking that I was already nineteen. The last few weeks of my eighteenth year included some pretty monumental events. I waited out a tornado with nine hundred other girls and lived to tell the tale. I turned on and watched the news by myself for the first time ever. I became slightly obsessive about the royal wedding and woke up at 4:30 am to watch it. I pulled my first legitimate all-nighter and managed to stay up until 2 am the next night. That same night, I succeeded in filling up my entire Facebook profile with posts all from a twelve hour span. These two events may or may not be related… I got to be the one to tell my parents about the death of Osama Bin Laden, AND I watched the news again. Clearly, I’m growing up.

Nineteen marks the end of my teenage years. In exactly one year, I will no longer be allowed to be “Young and wild and free.” Instead, I’ll be twenty and practically washed up. Granted, my teenage years have not been incredibly eventful, but they have been filled with their share of mistakes and “what was I thinkings?” In exactly one year, any child that I have can no longer be considered the product of a teenage pregnancy. Go me! In exactly one year, any incredibly stupid thing that I do can no longer be justified with the response “she’s just a teenager.” In exactly one year, any relative who uninterestedly asks me how old I am will choke on their sausage ball and say, “Twenty?! You’re twenty?! God, I feel old.” Thanks, now I do too.  

Finally, the moment that I’ve been dreading since August has arrived. In less than 48 hours, I will no longer be a freshman. Last night, I filled both my parent’s Tahoe and my car, Baby Jude, with the contents of my dorm. Now, I’m living in a soulless box.  My closet has one shirt and three pairs of shoes remaining (naturally, my boots are sticking it out until the end). After a lot of blood (yes), sweat (oh yes), and tears (sadly, yes), my bed has been successfully unlofted thanks to a hallwide effort. Saddest of all, without my legions of nametags and constantly scrawled on dry erase board, my door is as bare and nondescript as all of the other doors along my hall. I imagine that this is how it feels to be a prisoner on death row. The end is so close, and I honestly have no idea what’s on the other side; life after freshman years just seems unfathomable. Fortunately, it’s not goodbye forever, and in the grand scheme of things, this journey is just beginning. So, with that optimistic mindset, I’m venturing into summer with reckless abandon.