When you’re turning 20, does that mean that your general moodiness and staring-out-of-windows-ness stops being teenage angst and starts becoming…what? Full-blown depression?
When you’re turning 20, you’re closer now to legal drinking than you are to getting into R-rated movies.
Here are all the ways that it is impossible that you are turning 20 and becoming a "full-blown" "adult.” One of those ways is the excessive use of quotes. No adult uses that much “quotes.”
1. The only reason you sometimes know what day of the week it is, is because of Carvel’s “Buy One Get One Free” Sundae on Wednesdays.
2. You only recently stopped illegally downloading music, and that’s only because Spotify was running a special.
3. You make inappropriately loud proclamations in public places.
4. You still say, “Goals!”
5. You’re halfway done with college but you’re still on the starting line in terms of knowing what you want for dinner, let alone the rest of your life.
6. Tinder seems like a big commitment.
7. Sometimes when you’re bored you look up “Spongebob Squarepants” episodes to watch.
8. You have more in common with the host’s eight-year-old son than you do with other dinner party guests.
9. Sometimes you go to dinner parties.
10. All of your friends are “graduating” and “moving into apartments” for their “jobs.”
11. You can name every One Direction album but can’t say what ISIS stands for.
12. In the last decade, walking to school by yourself was the big accomplishment. In the next decade, you might have to do taxes by yourself.
13. You think 2007 was, like, three years ago.
14. You don’t separate lights and darks in your laundry. You just sort of hope for the best.
15. You have literally no idea where striped t-shirts go in the light vs. dark issue.
16. You might be registered to vote but who knows?
17. You’re just starting to get real, solid political opinions.
18. They’re not that solid.
19. You procrastinate until the end of days. And the literal End of Days.
Being a teenager is kind of like having a safety net. There is so much encompassed in that word. You are allowed to be silly and figure things out and rush into things. Being a teenager gives you the freedom to screw up and let your emotions get messy. Being a “20-something” comes with the same freedom and exploration, but higher stakes and bigger leaps. It’s like moving up to the MLB after playing Little League and still looking for the tee.
Being 20 has a roundness to it, a solidity. It’s not the hecticness of 21, but it’s not a kid anymore. It has limbs and a more defined face. It has opinions and quirks. It’s longer fears, bigger gulps of air, greater risks. It’s terrifying and lyrical and fractious. And it’s ours.
Oh, and!
20. And then you remember that you can do it.
