I turned 19 recently. Among the common sprinklings of “”Happy Birthday!”” and “”It’s your birthday?”” were statements like, “”Treasure your last year as a teen!”” and the more blunt, “”Wow, you’re old.”” Not even two decades into my life and I was already being labeled an old-timer.
All this got me thinking: What had I done with my life? What happened to the simplicity of years gone by? Why did I feel like I was still so young? I started reminiscing and harkening back to the good ol’ days. Remembering childhood and even high school years shows how much things change, spiked by acceleration into adulthood when we reach college. Innocence is so underrated.
In kindergarten, when our most consuming problem was getting glue off our fingers, everything was just so pure, including our mindsets. For me, “”Sesame Street”” was the highlight of my day. Bert and Ernie held the same stature usually reserved for rock idols. Not to sound like a teary-eyed nostalgic, but I miss those days — the days when everyone was your friend (or at least it seemed so), the sandbox was the neighborhood hangout and trees were smiling Everests beckoning to be climbed and explored. We actually wanted to be with our parents at all times, which, a decade later, would develop into a scorn rivaled only by our distaste for final exams.
In hindsight, this station in our lives was delightfully carefree. Mr. Rogers would coax us to be neighborly, and Barney was just a friendly purple dinosaur instead of an annoying and eerily large plush toy. The innocence of those days contrasts sharply with how everything is now. It is only natural that we grow up; the shame is in that with experience comes a certain cynicism and corruptibility that only humans can muster and maintain.
Granted, when we hit the teenage years, our once-pure mindsets all of a sudden became turned upside down. Reading about the Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew gave way to Sweet Valley High and then Sports Illustrated, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, Maxim, and who knows what else. Adolescence is a strange time — what exactly is inherent in us that makes schoolgirl Britney want to turn into sultry Britney? There began to be some appeal in being “”not that innocent.”” Hormones began to work at full speed, and cooties became a thing of the past.
Still, amid all this seeming turmoil and angst a la “”Dawson’s Creek”” lay the same innocence, only transformed. In other words, we still had bits and pieces of a childlike mentality within us. The world’s problems were not entirely ours, and although we had much more on our plate, we were still kids in a way. Do you remember the pillow fights at sleepovers and night runs to Jack in the Box? Braces and prom dresses and homecoming games — all were integral to our memory as teens.
I don’t bring up these moments merely to reminisce. By reflecting, you can see the many facets and factors of how the young adult you see in the mirror came to be. I sometimes wish that we could go back to the days when “”pot”” was a cooking receptacle, and “”making money”” meant setting up a lemonade stand. Back then, bicycles were the preferred transportation of choice, and sing-a-longs were the norm and not restricted only to rowdy drunkards at a party. It is almost frightening to realize that most of us are on the cusp of getting married, getting a job and getting a family. “”That’s far off,”” you may say. But wasn’t senior prom just yesterday? If we learn anything in college, it is that time flies, and the future is coming at us like a runaway train.
The other day, my roommate was playing music from Disney animated movies. I don’t think hearing a supposedly animated character sing had ever made me so emotional. For some reason, those somewhat cheesy tunes conjured in me a longing to smile and cry at the same time. Jasmine and Ariel were touching my inner child. Ironically, my roommate had it all stored in her MP3 file list. It was a fitting paradox: Something so embedded in our fond memories protruding from a technology that only recently was assimilated into our lives.
While it is never particularly healthy to dwell in the past, those comments from birthday well- wishers made me think (and also instilled in me a need to run to a playground). Not to advocate escapism, but would it be such a bad thing to sit on a swing again and forget about everything for a bit? How worry-free and silly life once was. It would be good to not sink into a defeated mindset and relive youthful memories with all the meticulous detail of a Civil War battle reenactment, but to just sit back and enjoy the moment. Youth is a phase and a mentality.
Nineteen years old? Ha! Nineteen years young. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sudden urge to run to La Jolla Shores and make snow angels in the sand.