Hodgepodge of ideas about turning twenty
A time capsule for my future self about where my head was at tonight on my last night of being a teenager -- inspired by Lorde's famous post
In 2016, Lorde posted “A NOTE FROM THE DESK OF A NEWBORN ADULT” — a letter via Facebook to her fans about the transition from 19 to 20 and the special magic of being a teenager. She’s a genius and I hope she writes a book one day. I will read it and memorize it and probably tattoo it on myself. Kidding! Maybe! I’m scared of tattoos!
Click here to read Lorde's post. You should.
Just like Lorde, tomorrow I turn 20. Unlike her, it’s not all I’ve been able to think about for days. I’ve been thinking about who I recognize in my new classes, and the burrito bowl recipe we’re making for dinner, and my sister moving across the country, and how this semester compares to the last. So far, this semester is better. I think (I hope).
I don’t walk around a big city like Lorde. I walk up and down the pretty upstate streets with slats on the houses and trees shading the sidewalk from the heat of the sun (but not the humidity). I walk the same path to class every day and I listen to my podcasts in my big chunky headphones. I walked this path for the first time my freshman year, before there was a little map in my mind of where all my friends and memories lived.
I walked these streets in the dark, shivering with groups of girls I didn’t know, promising to remain friends for the rest of our years at school. Some of us did, but some of us didn’t. We were all walking to parties full of other people we didn’t know.
I’m not sure what we wanted to get out of the parties. I think I liked the newness of it all and how exciting it felt to dress up in little tops and feel like a college girl with the loud music and the heat of everyone’s dancing bodies. I remember feeling like I was the only one who didn’t know what they were doing at a college party. I was hoping it would be a little bit more like movies and a little less sweaty.
While I write this, I’m on the shabby couch in my new apartment that I rent with new roommates-and-hopefully-friends. Old friends will be here in an hour or so, but for now I’m writing. I’ve got an old episode of Sex And The City on the TV that we set up all by ourselves. We set up the wifi and router too. In an apartment that I live in far away from home. Look at us! We’re so grown up! We sign leases! We set up wifi!
My new-roommate-and-hopefully-friend’s cat just slinked his way in front of the TV. His name is Finneas and he likes to watch shows with us. He is perched on the coffee table looking at Miranda and Carrie while they talk about how Carrie talks about men too much. My friends and I probably talk about men a little bit too much too. Or maybe not. I think being in love is a very important thing to talk about.
Lorde writes about how she was 16 when she met her audience. If this blog is my audience, then I met you all in this format when I was 18. I was idealistic, fresh out of a breakup, ignoring everything I didn’t like about this place and determined to build the perfect life here. I was sure that with enough motivation, nothing bad would ever happen to me again.
Bad things have happened since then, but I’ve learned that I can come back from them. I’m learning how to trust my instincts better and accept when things are imperfect.
I like my life to fit in Google Calendar rectangles, but I know now that it doesn’t. My life is in the photos on my wall that I printed before coming to college two (!) years ago. I put them up next to my pictures of my college friends and I make the collection into a collage of all of my different selves. My life is also in the voice memos I get from hungover friends on a Sunday morning. Especially those.
This is the most famous line from Lorde’s post:
“All my life I’ve been obsessed with adolescence, drunk on it. Even when I was little, I knew that teenagers sparkled. I knew they knew something children didn’t know, and adults ended up forgetting.”
I think I agree with her. I have a distinct feeling that the rest of my life can’t possibly change me as much as the past five years have. I am so different now.
For a lot of my important coming-of-age years, I was dating someone. Sometimes I regret years I spent with ex boyfriends or old friends that I don’t see anymore. Sometimes, I don’t even regret the loss of the person, just the loss of the self I was with them. So many of my formative years are trapped in the past, hidden in old conversations with people I can’t speak to anymore.
To cope with that scary feeling, I have comforted myself with the idea that no love spent is love wasted, and that you should never regret caring about someone. It’s not time gone, it’s time I spent learning about other people and myself and relationships.
Other types of wasted time are harder to feel okay about. I have spent too many hours staring in the mirror in a messy bathroom and disliking how I look. When I was 10, when I was 15, and even now at 19 on a particularly bad day. Maybe 20 will be different.
Not being a teenager anymore does feel very final. All of the experiences I’ve had so far are all of the ones I’ll ever get to say happened “when I was a teenager.” It also feels like a beginning. Some of my favorite books (Sally Rooney novels come to mind) are about being a young, confused girl in her twenties.
If I look back at this post at the end of my 20s — ten years! — I hope I look back with fondness at this version of myself. Here is what I hope that chunk of time looks like:
I hope it is full of people from various corners of my life, and years spent in an exciting big city walking around with a nice purse, and giggling with my sister and my mom. I hope I have a very chic haircut and I curl my hair like an adult instead of using my straightener. I hope every day keeps having the urgency that it does right now. I hope I don’t forget anything important.
I’ll end this post the same way Lorde did.
“The party is about to start. I am about to show you the new world.
I love you forever.”