There’s a moment in time when you think you’ve made it, when you tell yourself this is when adulthood begins. Can you feel the shift? No. But the decade-long wait — yearning for the prefix 1 to turn to a 2 — is rather underwhelming. I felt the same. Young. Stupid. Awkward. 

So when your friend turns around and tells you that you’re behaving like a teenager, you’re inclined to believe them. They’re probably able to see something you aren’t. Right? 

My initial reaction was to be offended. I’d been twenty for months now. I couldn’t let go of it, though, lingering in the back of my mind when I left for class, washed my dishes, made my bed, meal-prepped for the week. As far as I could tell, I had a better handle on this whole college thing than most people I knew. Far from being deluded, though. Perhaps the inadequacy I had been feeling, the lack of feeling truly twenty, stemmed from the fact that I wasn’t. 

As any sane person would do, I spiralled. Of course, it eventually made sense. The logical reason would be my stilted, sheltered childhood compared to the upbringing of my friends. Differing definitions of milestones — mine, measured by the number of books I read, my first unchaperoned movie in the theatre, when my parents finally finally agreed to give me a phone; everyone else moving at a pace unfathomable to me, but one that made me feel immeasurably jealous, left out, childish. 

When Taylor Swift said how can a person know everything at eighteen and nothing at twenty-one, I’d scoffed. Here I am, watching cars drive past, passersby lost in their own world, feeling lonelier than ever. Funnily enough, the next song on my shuffled playlist is Ruth B.’s Lost Boy. The irony. So here I am, in a packed study room, pondering over my adulthood that refuses to begin. All because someone told me I was behaving like a teenager. 

The surety I had at eighteen evaporated, disappearing with my reassurance and my faith in my future. The academic validation I craved transformed into feeling pride with every full day of attendance. At twenty, I watched the motivation I had for my 20s slip through my fingers. The flame I had lit in my teenage years scuffed out. 

Now I can’t help wondering if my teenage self knew better all along. The wild, crazy teenage years I had never had: what better time than now? The first two years of college seem wasted — staying in, turning down plans, refusing to go out because I’d told myself this is what a twenty-something working woman would do. The alienation — self inflicted. In the pursuit of a life that I hate more with each passing day. 

So I made up my mind. I would, in fact, become a teenager. Not to make up for the years I felt I lost in my actual teenage years, no. The regret faded. Because now it’s easier to feel like I’m equipped to wholly immerse myself in the teenage experience knowing what I know now. A list drawn up, to figure out what it means to be a teenager. I only managed two before I realized all I had to do was be more open.  

1. Lesser hesitation 
2. More yeses 

Becoming a teenager a year after has its perks: doing stupid things more responsibly. The two years spent trying to become the best student resulted in stronger boundaries. Perhaps the smartest teenagers are those who know how to say no. In my pursuit of turning twenty, that’s what I learned. An unassuming, tiny realization, but more prepared to turn into the teenager I never had a chance to be. 

What does a teenager at twenty look like? The isolation I’ve been dreading since college began arrived this month, but it’s been a blessing. More time to work. More opportunities to finally go to the gym, eat home-cooked meals, take a walk. 

I do not know more than I knew at eighteen. Seems like I know lesser. The student life I envisioned alone in my bedroom at sixteen — endless parties, the best grades with low effort, a concert every month — no longer exists. Yet the life I have is entirely more peaceful. Tumultuous friendships aside. More time by myself, yes, but it hasn’t been all bad. A reset. Leaving the ideals and milestones I had hoped twenty would bring is a weight off my shoulders. “The space I left grows misshapen; I will never fit there again.”

As Jenna Ortega as Cairo had once said in Miller’s Girl, besides the quote above: “[i]s this what it is to be an adult? The same exquisite longing of adolescence, but with a burden of constant accountability?” The accountability arrived before the longing of adolescence — thankfully.

So here I am, half-empty Tim’s cup next to my iPad, Chappell blasting in my AirPods, trying to figure out my next tennis date, unsure of whether my writing actually makes sense. I can be sure when I’m twenty. 

Twenty can wait. For now, I’d like to be a teenager.