This Is What It Feels like to Be Nineteen

Nineteen is where I leave you. Me, lying on your bed. You, pausing mid-sentence for a kiss when reading me How to Win Friends & Influence People. Me, pausing Grandma’s Boy. You, asking me where everything went wrong. I am glad to have had you, but nineteen is where I leave you.

Nineteen is where I learn to politely nod my head. I know now more than ever what I’m capable of and what I am capable of is everything. You (and you and you and you and you) told me I couldn’t survive moving alone to a new city, that I shouldn’t spontaneously travel by train to foreign states and stay in hostels. But I ignored you. Thank you for thinking your opinion matters, but nineteen is where I learn to politely nod my head.

Nineteen is where I love myself. I’ll call in sick to work. I’ll pick up the dessert tab. I’ll leave my phone at home and experience life with you. I’ll wake up early to watch the sun rise. I’ll watch movies all night and skip class in the morning. I’ll learn that money is just a piece of paper. I’ll realize that I’m young and I’ll make mistakes and I’ll learn from them. I’ll realize that when I want to do something, I will do it. I’ll drive alone to the Pacific Ocean tomorrow and stay in a hostel for some nights. I’ll breathe salty air and bunk with a roommate who probably won’t speak English. Why? Because nineteen is where I love myself.

Nineteen is where I freak out about twenty. The in-between. Legally an adult, yet still a kid at heart. My last year as a teen. Stuck in a time where everything feels like it could fall apart at any moment. Where falling asleep is much harder due to the gnawing feeling that life will never be what I want. That all of my decisions for the past 19 years have only done harm. Because who can I trust if I can’t trust myself? Because someone out there is dying and someone else is falling in love and I am lying in bed at 2am staring out of a window that a 14 year old climbed out of 5 years ago at 2am to go meet her neighbor for a sleep-over. I might look like I have it all together; I might look like I’m ready for the future. Sometimes I do and sometimes I am. But nineteen is still where I freak out about twenty.