19 going on OLD

VISUALS BY NATALIE SONG

I’ve realized that I am, in fact, turning 20 very shortly. I was under the impression that I could keep on living in my sweet delusion that I’ll be a teenager forever.

No, I will not be discussing the fact that my last two years of being a teenager were spent in quarantine.

Turning 20 has given me a new appreciation for The Great Gatsby. I am Gatsby, and my green light is a world in which I was allowed to remain a teenager forever, dammit!

I’ve just been informed that I’m no longer the target demographic of young adult fiction?!? Apparently, I’m a “new adult” now. I am now deeply afraid to reread my favorite YA books. What if I no longer like them? What if I no longer see myself in them?

On an even more disturbing note, I’m now one year away from being the target demographic of Forever 21…

Well, Lorde, it’s been almost four years and all of your music has yet to leave my monthly playlists, so where do we go from here?!

What do you mean Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, and Charli D’Amelio are all younger than me and already more successful than I’ll ever be?? Brb, gotta go ponder where I would be if I’d made a TikTok dance video last year.

I’m only turning 20. I know my life isn’t over (obviously), so why does it feel that way? Why do I feel like I’ve missed a deadline I didn’t even know about? Why do I feel… old?

What even is “old”? Why have I been taught to fear aging like it’s a monster that’s always lurking, always one step closer to me? Why, it’s the patriarchy, of course!

On top of being taught to hate everything about myself, I must now also hate the biological process of aging?!

The age difference between Leo and his girlfriends makes me scream internally. Got it: only men are granted the “luxury” of being more respected as they age.

What do you mean there are people who are “too young” to know One Direction??

I saw a TikTok video caption that read: “I wish I was a teen during the early 2010s.” I simply refuse to believe that the era in which we unironically wore galaxy print is becoming a “vintage aesthetic.”

Am I now at the age when I get to call the completion of basic, everyday tasks “adulting” in order to fill the existential hole within me? Nice.

If you really think about it, being a teenager absolutely STINKS! There’s a reason we all stare at our phones and cower whenever we approach a group of teens: the stench of unchecked egos and unsurmountable angst.

To make myself feel better about all this, I’m going to start “when I was your age”-ing the shit out of everyone who’s even remotely younger than me.

The “Women’s Pain” speech from season two of Fleabag lives rent-free in my mind. Maybe realizing that you’re growing up is “horrendous [at first], but then it’s magnificent.”

“Your high school years are the best years of your life”—shut up, no they aren’t! Maybe you just peaked in high school!!

I’ve decided that I’m no longer going to be participating in the “hating the fact that you’re growing up” narrative.