My Post-Teenage Manifesto
Tomorrow, on March 5th, 2004, I will turn twenty years old. As of tomorrow, I will have spent two solid decades of existence in this world as of 11:37 a.m. I will no longer be considered a child, nor will I ever technically be a teenager. High school and puberty (really?) are past me now, and this is, as so they say, the first step towards becoming an adult; this is where and when it happens. All those conceptions of teenage life I had when I was younger turned out to pretty much false; I never slammed the door in my parents face while they yelled “Because I said so!” to a grungy room full of posters, nor did I ever hang out with Zack, Kelly, and Screech in the burger joint after school. I didn’t do any of those things, and in college I never walked down sunny lawns of Fraternity row and saw Bluto smashing a guitar on the ground. My actual experiences and memories of these places seem false compared to my preconceptions, and when my friend told me “this is your last day as a teenager man!” I felt a deep sense of confusion and loss; as if I had jumped on the wrong boat and I’m sailing miles and miles away from where I should be.
But these things are arbitrary. Why do people make resolutions on New Year’s Eve and not on any other day? Or birthdays for that matter? There’s no intrinsic quality of December 31st that causes for self-examination and change; the day itself is no different than any other day. Why only once a year? It is important though to at least assign some day for self-examination, as to not let every day slide by without notice or thought. My friend’s birthday, which is conveniently a day before mine (today), muttered on the way out to the door “well I wish it was a little warmer for my birthday.” Why must we only wish it outloud on our birthday? Why not everyday?
So here I am, on the verge of things ending, on the last and steepest dip of the slide. Winter quarter is rapidly wrapping up (finals already?!), and I’m writing my last papers, attending my last classes, and wearing those long johns for just maybe the last time. But what strikes me most about where I am are not the endings, but rather the beginnings. I’ll be flying to California in a few days to what seems like an unbelievable trip. I’m working on film and photography ideas that excite me more and more as they grow. Beginnings are always more exciting than endings; and this is the attitude I want to adopt as I turn 20 tomorrow.
However....Ben left, rather cryptically, a message for me, ending it by saying “Hope this is the life you’ve always wanted!” To be honest, it pissed me off. What’s that supposed to mean? What’s does that say? That you can have the life you want right now? Not after fifth grade, not after middle school, not after high school, not after college, not til when everything supposedly culminates in finding a job afterwards, but you be perfectly happy and content with where you are right now? My whole life, I can safely without exaggerating, like any other American young student, seems to be a mad rush in preparation for something; keep working now to get to the next step, and when you get there, you have to make sure you do this and that to get to the next step, and so on and so on. I clearly remember sixth grade teacher Mrs. Scobee popping into class during the last month of fifth grade, laying it on us to start getting serious: sixth grade is only next year! Sixth Grade! And then, in sixth grade, it was to get ready for the big seventh grade, where kids started to grow facial hair and smelly clothes...and all of sudden, it was high school where things got really serious. I remember waiting for it; bracing for future’s slap on the face. But it never came. High school was more of the same, except now, shit, you’ve gotta worry about colleges and moving miles and miles away. This was the ultimate; all of your life has felt like it’s been working to this point: where you gonna go to college? It was never a question of “if” but a necessity of “must.” And now, smack dab in the middle of college, is it any wonder I feel a gnawing disillusionment? The big talked-over shebang never dropped, and now I’m sick of the cyclical wash of quizzes, midterms, papers, finals, and registration. “Hope this is the life you’ve always wanted?” Sure, if someone had really told me that what matters today and this second matters exactly as much when you’re in some office job with diplomas on your wall and kids on your life, sure. I’m not saying future-planning isn’t as important, but what happens when it becomes the life you’ve always lived? What makes life in your twenties more valuable than when you were thirteen?
So, in trying to come up with some response to Ben, I had to say no. It’s not, but in a bizarre sense I don’t even feel like that’s an applicable question: I feel my life hasn’t started yet. And that, to me, is the saddest thing in the world. So, with one last day as a teenager, I say life starts now. Fuck this incessant worry and anxiety about where I’ll be in a few years, and fuck this omnipresent hesitation I’ve felt since grade school. I want to be a better person right now. I want to be the person people remember me by forever at this moment. I want to find everything I want and fix things right now as if this was it. This is it, as of tomorrow I’m forever saying goodbye to being “something-teen.” College should be about yourself, and wanting to be as passionate as you want and drop italics as much as you want.
It's kind of ironic that Mrs. Scobee is now the head Alumni contact, in charge of organizing all the high school reunions and the alumni magazine. And though I never had a friend like Spicoli (well, close maybe) nor had Principal Belding giving me a detention, that is not to say I’ve been disappointed. My experiences have been different in so many incredibly fascinating and curious ways, showing me things and showing me people that have had a profound impact on my life. It’s just a matter of realizing that things can be better than you’ve realized before, and that not everything grows worse and stale. And so I say, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.