The Importance of Leaving Ones’ Teenage Years Behind
Graphic by Maya Swift
I played Ribs by Lorde when the clock turned midnight on my 20th birthday. I remember it with such clarity because I had decided turning 20 would be a defining moment in my life. Falling asleep to Ribs as I pretended it was non-diegetic made turning 20 a lot more comforting and meaningful than I had previously imagined. 20 was a milestone I wasn’t ready for. The thought of no longer being able to find comfort in teenagehood and instead having to partake in adulthood terrified me. The idea of it happening overnight made it even worse. So I laid down and played Lorde in hopes of a miracle that would make everything appearing in front of me okay.
Your teenage years are supposedly the best years of your life- no matter how they go. You’re young, your energy levels are at an all-time high- and you have your whole life in front of you: nothing and everything matters at the same time. I measured my success in my teenage years on a scale from Was A Lot Like A Coming Of Age Film to Wasn’t A Lot Like A Coming Of Age Film, and I don’t think I did terribly. I got way too drunk and kissed people on dancefloors and watched scary movies in cabins in the middle of the night with my friends, and I’d feel so in the moment all the time. And while I dealt with mental health issues and lost a chunk of my high school life because my muscles couldn’t move me out of my bed no matter how much I tried- life hasn’t been terrible. I’ve had difficult times, yes, but nothing has ever felt permanent.
Adulthood does.
I’m not scared of ageing or getting old- I just don’t know how to process it. The world just feels disconnected, and each year closer to adulthood has felt like 10 years of stress put on my body until I wake up feeling like the hardware in my body is bugging. Life during adulthood has felt like waiting for the end, and although 20 isn’t old realistically, I can’t help but not only feel old- but also as if I’m running out of time. The disconnect between who I imagine myself as and who I wake up to grows, and as much as I think of most problems as temporary ones, this one feels endless.
And it’s scary.
It may seem like I regret the way I’ve lived my life- I really haven’t. I just pressured myself. Constantly. To the point of exhaustion. There was so much value in productivity that everything I did had to be drenched in it. It went on to the point where I was 15 years old, feeling guilty if I wasn’t doing something productive. But productivity is relative- and believing you can pack every day with no thought of health merely is unrealistic. We romanticise caffeine-induced extra heartbeats, and months with no sleep convinced the perception of us as more important than who we are- and most importantly, what we feel.
If my body grows an evil brain one day and decides to get back at me for the pain it’s had to endure, I would accept it. But before it does that, I dream of a second chance, and if I think long and hard enough, I’ll start believing I deserve one.
We all do.
As much as everything scares me, as much as change and the lack of permanency sends chills down my spine, a part of me longs for what I don’t know yet. Isn’t it beautiful to have an entire life waiting for you with open arms? To know you can start over? The only thing that’s temporary about adulthood is the fact that I’m in it for as long as I live. I haven’t lived through my best days or met everyone I’ll ever love or seen every beautiful thing I’ll ever see, and to think adulthood will automatically rip that away from me is not to trust myself. It’s not naive to dream of better days.
We’re never really taught how to grow up or what it means to be an adult. Is it biological? Is it legal? Is it an abstract sense of independence? As I turn 21 on March 13th this year, as I listen to another song romanticising life, I’ll melodramatically remind myself of the curiosity I feel for the future and how that curiosity has and will keep me going. Leaving your teenage years behind you isn’t the end of the world because your teenage years aren’t sacred. They’re barely the beginning of your life.
By Nilo Khamani ( IG: @nilokhamani)
(she/her)
Graphic by Maya Swift (IG: mayaisabelaswift)
(she/her)