I love autumn. I love the cold weather, the big sweaters, pumpkins, and the leaves changing. The start of autumn also signifies my birthday. I know a lot of people hate birthdays, but I love them. I love the cake and the parties and the well wishes. Every autumn I reflect on the past year — any regrets I had for that age or anything I wish I did. Because while I love my birthday I absolutely hate change. I hate getting older, the feeling that I’m wasting my teen years, and knowing I’ll never be that age again. I was so excited to turn seventeen. All my favorite characters were seventeen and I was so excited to see what it would bring me. I ended up spending most of that year alone. I read a lot of books and drank a lot of coffee and sat in a lot of parks. I think I would have loved to be seventeen forever. Then autumn came and I turned eighteen. It was an emotional year. I voted and was accepted to SCAD. The world was not yet at my fingertips but I could taste it. Eighteen was a lot of waiting. Waiting to graduate, waiting to move, waiting to grow up. There were so many what ifs.
Then I moved, and autumn came and I turned nineteen. So far nineteen has been lovely. I’ve learned a lot about myself, maybe because of my age, but probably because I’m living on my own. I’ve met a lot of people, made a lot of friends, and fallen in love. There’s been hard moments, I think that’s part of growing up. The world is at my fingertips now but I don’t want it. I’m still scared. Scared about what happens when I leave school, scared about my career, where I’m going to live, the climate disaster, and if I’ll have rights. I’m scared about a lot of things and truthfully I just want to go back home and stay with my parents forever. I’ve never been able to live in the moment. I don’t know if I ever will. Now I’m sitting here, nineteen years old, and about to enter my last summer as a teenager. I hate change enough as it is but that’s really hard to say. I am almost done being a teenager but I still feel like a child. People younger than me have gotten married, had children, and bought houses. I can barely afford my iced matcha in the morning, but I am officially the age where I can achieve big things.
Summers are always romanticized, and it’s always an overstatement. Life is not perfect or pretty and I am so sick of romanticizing my ages or my summers then being disappointed in myself because I didn’t achieve that. This summer I have made a promise to not romanticize it. I am going to work a lot because nineteen also taught me that living is expensive. I have some super fun trips planned that I’m excited for, but I will not romanticize them.
I think an important lesson I’ve learned is that life’s not perfect. It’s ugly and it’s pretty boring for the most part. At nineteen I learned to love the little, beautiful things, and at twenty I want to practice that every day. So while I’m terrified to turn twenty, I am truly going to try to live in the moment because life is too short to be disappointed in yourself. Be kind to yourself and I’ll see you in the fall.
Words by Alix Russell-Mann.
Graphic by Reem Hinedi.