I have always struggled to be content with my age. 

However, I have never really been able to pinpoint why. I understand my closest friends, possessing older siblings and eager to grow in age, watching their brother or sister access opportunities before them while they’re stuck in their childhood bedrooms surely wasn’t exciting. But I don’t have an older brother or sister; the only elder comparison I have in my life are my parents, and I am not particularly sure I want to be 60 years old just yet. 

When I was 7 years old, with freshly divorced parents and a newbie to my large public school, I only wanted to be 10, maybe 11, if I felt particularly antsy. The thought of being in the fifth grade exhilarated me. I wanted to have crushes and date boys: by date, I mean ignore each other in the hallways and swiftly break up two weeks later. I wanted my mom to finally hand me the American Girl Doll, The Care & Keeping of You book, and shortly after, buy me a training bra from Justice. I wanted my dad to stop embarrassingly making me sit in a booster seat: the front seat seemed to be a utopia. 

Then I turned 10, and six months shy of my 11th birthday, being 13 was the object of my desire. I wanted braces so badly that, in a hypochondriac fashion, I convinced myself that I could feel my teeth aching. Something about having a metallic smile felt sophisticated. I didn’t only want an iPod Touch, but it was essential, like my ability to breathe air. Even more so, I needed to go to the local mall with ONLY my friends (bringing a parent would be too humiliating), enter PINK Victoria’s Secret, and buy the trendiest $30 hoodie in my line of vision. I wanted to have my first, real, absolutely romantic kiss, Pride & Prejudice style. 

And then I was 13, and my teeth stung because my orthodontist was trying to “move things along quickly.” Now, being 18, a real, true adult had all of my attention. I would finally be a woman, whatever that meant. I could reject my hometown, go to college in a land far, far away, and learn to be my own person. I could form serious opinions about the world and buy a lottery ticket while I did so. Maybe I would even get a piercing without telling my mom and feel incredibly rebellious. I might go to parties with my friends, stay out all night, and wake up with eyeliner streaked down my face. It wasn’t necessarily what I would be doing or who I would be doing it with; it was the freedom I yearned for.

Now, I am 19, just on the cusp of being 20, no longer a kid or preteen, and it’s hit me: I don’t want to be any older than I am right now. Each stage of my youth went exactly how it was supposed to. I had fake boyfriends at age 9, I ritualistically purchased overpriced brand-name clothing at 14, and I picked a college a state away from home at 17. However, it is only now that I have learned to relish the value of being exactly where and who I am. I am anxiously awaiting who I will become in my twenties, but learning to savor where I am now, 19-something years old. 

Written by Ella Romano

Edited by Cassidy Hench and Julia Brummell