i don't want to be 20.

dear 19,

i don't want to be 20.

i don't want to get older, not that there's anything wrong with getting older, more like there's something wrong with ME getting older. it just doesn't feel right. 19 feels like me; it feels right, it makes sense, almost perfect sense, and it's like the perfect age to be. i'm an adult, but i'm also a teenager; there's something so beautiful about that. beautiful about being the age that is the last stop before everything ends. not that life ends when you get older; well, i guess at a certain point it does...? but more like this is the last age where i get to use my age as an excuse.

"you don't know what you want to do with your life ? well, okay, you're still 19."

"you don't have a stable five-day-a-week job ? well, okay, you're still 19."

but in two days that "well, okay" turns into "start taking life seriously."

not that my age was ever really allowed to be an excuse in my brown household; i started college at sixteen, i'm about to graduate with my BA at 20, and still my family expects more from me. but my age felt like an escape outside of my family. like strangers would hear my age and see my credentials and say, "wow, that's pretty impressive," and turning 20 doesn't change the timeline, but it feels like the questions and comments and admiration will stop.

i don't want to be 20.

the thought of no longer hearing the word "teen" come out of my mouth when in response to someone asking my age makes my stomach twist in ways i didn't know were possible. it fills me with sorrow i didn't know i could feel. it's weird; before this i never really felt that age was a part of my identity. it changes every year, but there's something so unique about being a "teen." it's such a special stage in life that i wish i had learned to appreciate before it was too late, before i sat in my room writing about how i so desperately longed to stay 19 forever.

19 was somehow the best and worst year of my life. i found out i could, unfortunately, love someone very deeply. i experienced my first heartbreak, but i also came to love and appreciate my form of 'love.' my whole life i hated the type of person i was; i hated how "obsessive," "pathetic," and "desperate" i felt when all i wanted was for someone to see me, and somehow at the beautiful age of 19, i realized i am not any of those ugly words for being human.

thank you 19 for teaching me what eighteen years of life couldn't, for allowing me to feel both freedom and childhood in one year, and for giving me one final year where i felt like "me." maybe this is dramatic; i'll probably wake up in two days and feel no different than i felt the night before. maybe a year from now i'll be thinking about how 20 was the best year of my life. i hope i will, but for now i think it's okay to feel sad saying goodbye to such a unique year.

with sorrow,

nix