A Checklist For The Age 19

Wow. This is, in fact, my life right now (plus and minus a few things).

Thanks.

This is exactly how I feel.

Make lists. Lots of lists.

I absolutely loved this. 

number 9

I hope I feel like this when I’m 19.

Took the thoughts right out of my head. Rock on, fellow 19 year olds.

spot on. definitely captures the nutter sensation of being nineteen – legally an adult, but everyone still thinks you’re a kid teenager. and insert all the emotional sensations that come as a result

annnnnnnnd accuracy award!

Eh, I’m not sure. I’m turning 19 in a few months and I feel nothing like this.
Except, of course, point 4.

Growing older sucks, want to remain in the early stages of late teenagehood forever. 

You’re over thinking it. 

I don’t think we’re the target audience anymore PC. 

I just turned 20 and number 2 accurately describes the past month of my life.   I’m going to miss the spit take look that accompanies “You’re ONLY 19???”  20 is just met with “Aww. Well. You’re still a baby” 

This is fantastic! I’m turning 20 next month and this is precisely how I feel at the moment…

At 19, I moved to a new country to get my college degree. This article hits home. Thank you. 

I’m nineteen-year-old college student and, with a few tweaks, this article perfectly describes where my life is right now. Thanks Jennifer!

I’m nineteen-year-old college student and, with a few tweaks, this article perfectly describes where my life is right now. Thanks Jennifer!

I’m 19 and I’m feelin’ #6.

This just makes me feel old.

This exactly summarises my life. Not certain if I want to get to 20, or rewind time and be younger. Number 8 – I bought a fridge and a light bulb the other day and have not been so excited in a long time.

cos you’re not 19 yet DUH

“Recognize that once you turn 20, no one will describe you as a prodigy, no one will call you ‘exceptional’ or ‘advanced’ or ‘gifted’ or ‘special,’ Craig Ferguson will not say “Wow, and she’s only 19!” when the entrance music dies down. Master the art of feeding yourself consolatory nonfat yogurt while wrapped in blankets and reading things on the Internet. Let your eyes grow wide.”

I used to be obsessed with child prodigies while I felt there was still time to be one. Still hard to define myself as an adult and not someone with “so much potential.” Like, is this where the potential ends? What?

Jennifer Schaffer, you are a Person On The Internet that I feel I really know, such as I can.

awesome, anna. thanks for reading

thanks, jade, means a lot

so many lists, lists lists lists

hi erin, glad you could relate

go go go

Not only I wish to be 20, my perfect dream age is 27.
Because when you’re 27, you’re one of those who can judge 19 year olds and deem them worthy (or not)

cool, you might

sweet, rock on

totally nutter. thanks, irreverent.

thanks, james :)

glad #4 was relatable, alina

growing older has its perks, or as my dad says, ‘beats the alternative’

hi kyle. that’s my specialty

20 seems interesting/wild, excited to see what it’s like

thanks, hayley :) happy birthday, next month

that’s very brave. thanks for reading, eliza

awesome, thanks atx

sweet, niaka, glad you’re feelin’ it too

I wish I had seen this before I turned 20 this year. Wow, so good

don’t feel old, we’re all probably dead in dog years anyway

awesome, rosanna, glad you can relate. someone stole my mini-fridge the other day

thanks, lauren, that made me smile :)

One of the better pieces I’ve read on TC

hm, i hope i don’t judge 19 year olds when i’m 27… think i’ll judge furniture catalogs, etc. instead

thanks, ag, hope 20 is treating you well

thanks, ted, glad you enjoyed

I don’t remember ever feeling this way.  

Well, except for the panic part.  But I still panic, like, all the time.  So it’s cool.  

I’m only 18, turning 19 in a couple of months, yet I already feel a lot of these things.
I’m scared of growing up.

be fearlesssim6

cool, thanks for reading

Growing up simultaneously is the worst thing ever and the best thing ever.This article does a brilliant job in capturing that dichotomy!! Great job!

thanks so much, steven :)

It’s a tough age, 19…expected to be adult about things, but still not even out of the formidable teen years.  You encounter college, living on your own, supporting yourself (well most of us, anyway) and still have to figure out who you are.  

growing pains, etc.

I’m 24 and do many of these things. Perfect :)

The day that I turned 19, which was already 8 months ago, I think I was sitting on my mother’s couch angry that I was no longer 16, because when I was 16 I had purpled hair and friends. I wrote a lot of poetry. I had spent my last days being 18 by cheating on my boyfriend with our 26 year old roommate, planning to run away to Colombia with said roommate, and trying as hard as I could to play up how young I was in hopes that I was tapping into some sort of fetish. When I turned 19, I was essentially still 18, except I was not going to Colombia, I was going back to Parsons, and I seemed to have lost a lot of friends.

I’m still 19. When I got assaulted and the police asked me my age, I said “Eightee– no, sevent– shit, I’m nineteen.” I went to one party since I’ve been 19, and I was pleased when everyone else there realized I was born in the 90s. Since being 19, I’ve gotten really into prescription pain killers and designing lamps, and I haven’t left the country. I write in journals a lot about film theory and why I’m sad that I will have only been to 5 continents by the time I’m 20. I’ve left Parsons because my family is poor and my mother married a 24 year old sociopathic Algerian. My house has fleas. I pincurl my hair constantly because I don’t work or have friends. I’ve made $29 turking on Amazon and I feel too guilty to spend it on anything. I’ve top biting my nails after 17 or so years. I talk in a baby voice and call myself “Coco” all day. I don’t relate to people my age because I don’t know any. I relate to nihilists with learning disorders, and I drink rum at 11am and take Tramadol on top of that because it alters my personality enough that people perceive me as the kind of 19 year old that this checklist applies to, instead of the kind of 19 year old I really am– lazy, unempathetic, jaded, listening to Cugi’s Cocktails on repeat and developing a mantra around whatever happened to Sally Horner in 1948. I am maybe actually 13 because I also apparently write long comments because I want fodder for the preservation of my self-hatred.

wow, amnesiac, a lot to process 

i’m sorry about the bad things, i’m intrigued by your words, and 5 continents is a sizable accomplishment, you’ve only got 2 to go.

sweet :)

one day you’re going to look back on this and laugh.  enjoy life.  you’re so young!

of course I will! thanks, jordan :)

I liked this. I turn 20 in 28 days.

I’m nineteen. I think there’s an important other side to this age, a side that is less controlled and less list-able than anything you wrote here. I really like what you wrote — but it leaves out the fact that many of us nineteen year olds are still getting kicked out of schools, having sex with people we shouldn’t, taking drugs casually and excessively, driving drunk because we assume we’ll be fine, deciding that if we haven’t made it as the child prodigy — well maybe we’ll make it as the wild child, the one that burns bright and corrupts those around them, the one that gets lost. I got lost and I’m finding my way back right now… but not all nineteen year olds are in heavy relationships and mixing protein shakes. many of us are skipping meals because we forget and we don’t have our mothers there to make us a sandwich, many of us are vomiting on sunday mornings all alone, trying to remember what we did on the night before. many of us are getting our heart broken by some other lost nineteen year old kid, who isn’t sure how to love someone and make it stick. we lie, we steal, we cheat, and we are making mistakes and it is okay — because guess what, we are only nineteen and soon we will never be able to be such messes. our lives are shambles and it is alright. we will be alright. one day, maybe, we will be the kind of person who always emails people back and shops at Trader Joes. but now, we’re just nineteen, and we have time to relish in the last year of teenage madness.

Sorry I said things… I should probably deal with my depression and anxiety before commenting on Thought Catalog.

Nahhhhh, the TC writers don’t, so why should you?  

glad you enjoyed, happy birthday in 28 days

hi taudrey, thank you for reading & for your thoughts; ‘we will be alright’ indeed.

I have to say sometimes I look back fondly at being 19. There was excitement and a little bit of apprehension being unsure where my life was going. I felt old, but at the same time so young; I mean, it’d be several years before I could legally drink.  But I don’t know…seven years later, I’m glad my life has moved on. There’s a comfort in knowing the decisions I made during those anxious years paid off, and I have some clarity (just some–it’s still a little murky) as to where my life is going. While my social interactions have gone down somewhat, I have to say I’ve been rewarded with being left with true relationships that I admire greatly….so here’s where I’m going, I suppose.  Enjoy being 19, but don’t fret about a childhood being lost.  There’s still so much to be done!   (Good piece, by the way)

i love you, i do

so you’re saying she forgot about art majors? 

Anyhow the  crowd you described is the crowd that forgets that the ‘teenage madness’ they relish often has serious consequences.  They need to grow the fuck up.  grow up fast.   Not everything ends up ‘alright.’

 Much agreed.  keep your quality high even if your quantity is low.  There are too many on here pressured for regurgitating low-quality pieces. 

I see the stick up your arse has been removed?? lol  did you consult an MD or a botanist? 

Wow, this hits hard. It all comes down to uncertainty, doesn’t it?

some older people, as in people 30′s and up, really don’t take people younger than them seriously. I work with people older than me and I am constantly talk downed to.  People really need to be more respectful o others and not discriminate based on age.

You’re a day after me! 20 in 27 days. Yay to us

I agree completely, but there’s something that grates my nerves about younger people trying to be like “real” people. I can respect this article but at the same time it annoys the crap out of me. And I know it’s only because she’s younger than me and that I’ve been there and how different I am now. Maybe the reminder that I was such a piece of shit before?

Have turned 19 dis august….its a age of mixed emotions…really don’t knw wat I actually want frm frm life..bt I knw somewhere down da line dat have to live it da large wae…I guess did age tells is dat its tym to b responsible…bt later on it feels v r juss 19 …y to bother so much abt da future wen v t not yet cleared of wat v want frm life??
P.s amazing catalogue it juss explains dat v t juss 19:)

trust me, I know that things don’t end always end up alright. but I also don’t think that being on the “straight and narrow”, so to speak, will protect you from all the not-alright things in the world either. everyone is in danger of illness, death, loss, losing your job, being broke, having your heart broken, being assaulted, etc. I agree that my crowd often needs to take their own safety more seriously — I also think that other ‘crowds’ need to get off their high horse and realize they are just as vulnerable as the rest of us. my vulnerability is just easy to identity. 

and good call on the art major thing. I am. I laughed. 

hi maxwell chance

“what is ‘real’? does it hurt? does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?”

thanks for reading

hi gregory costa, thank you for reading and for your insights, feels reassuring & exciting to think about the next 7 years

Great article, this is all so true.

I felt like being nineteen was defined by a terrible, anxious anticipation of growing up, and turning twenty was  like being abruptly pushed off a cliff into adulthood. But the good part is the feeling of I-think-I’m-starting-to-get-it that gradually follows; it makes everything that preceeds it worthwhile.

Sometimes I forget that I’m only 19…

And I’m turning 20 in a couple of months.

and yes, this article summarizes my 19 year old life as of now.

never commented on here before, but this was very well written. this format has been somewhat played out on tc so my expectations were low, but this piece hit close to home. very witty and cheeky with actual honesty and dark advice layered in. 

Real people == (my age +-2 years) <= their age. 

(I was being sarcastic. Don't let my old-man mentality (25 years old) get you down. You keep on kicking arse. [Was that condescending? Oh lord, I don't know how to handle non-real people.]) 

I needed this article. Thanks.  Heres to 4 more days of being 19.

thank you

That’s what I thought when I saw this. I turn 20 on the 15th.

#1, #5, #6, “neurotic habits when choosing produce at Trader Joe’s,” “‘How do I look?’ to ‘This is my face,’” and the “need to scream.” I’ve checked off everything on this list since turning 19, although I did not anticipate any of it – the mental turbulence, brief obsessions with health and eating and domestic things, periods of forced calm spliced with irrational frustration and new levels of loneliness, or the nightly revelations, and the fear that none of it makes any difference versus thinking it really does. 

Nice article!!

There needs to be a “You’re 22…. it’s okay!” article. Still don’t know what the eff I’m doing. lol

This is absolutely gorgeous. At nineteen I feel myself experiencing the majority of these things, especially 9. All of it, really. This was real and inspirational and comforting. Thank you.

THIS IS THE BEST THING. Ever. I felt the need to write that in all caps. Thank you for capturing exactly what I feel. Especially 9.
Go and do not stop. Are you sure? Every once in a while I turn around to look at the path I’ve made and don’t let myself regret anything. It’s like, everyone treats you as a half-adult and that’s what I am now. A half-adult. 6 months until I’m 20. I feel like I should really do something. But, what?

love this piece. i honestly feel like this was written for me. fits me perfectly right now. very very good piece

this is a gorgeous piece with relevance and humility. thank you.

…Thanks.

Zomgosh! I’ll be 19 in a month and a little bit and I panicked so much that I googled “being nineteen.”  Yep. I’m a bit of a dork. BUT, in saying that, #4 fits me to a T. Therefore, I am well on the way to being a decent 19 year old. Methinks.

I accept your kind advice with utmost gratitude and without admitting that I am “somewhat lost and sometimes lonely and so completely confused”. MLIA.