My birthday is coming up and so is the end to my teenage years. I’m excited to start a new chapter in my life, but it’ll be kind of sad to say goodbye to them. I did a lot of stupid things as a teenager, but at the same time, I also learned so much. To wrap up the last few days, I decided to make a list of things I learned in my year of being 19.
1. How to change a smoke detector
The obnoxious beeping didn’t even end up being a smoke detector after all, but I did spend an entire night standing on a step stool balanced on top of my night stand finally learning how to change one.
2. How to change a wiper blade
I didn’t even know that changing wiper blades on my car was a thing until the rubber started coming off one day in the middle of driving through a rain storm.
3. How to live on my own
I moved out about a month before I turned 19, and there was so much I had to learn. Like how to deal with ants that wouldn’t go away. And what setting to wash different things on. And that the smoke alarms can go off after turning the heat on for the once a year it gets cold. And how to make do when you don’t have the tools your dad did, like a hammer. And that cooked chicken is only good for four days.
4. How to cook tacos, sloppy joes, and fajitas
I still can’t cook, but in the one year that I haven’t lived with my family, these are the three things that I can: tacos, sloppy joes, and fajitas. In addition, I am also pretty skilled at heating up TGIF buffalo wings and making sandwiches.
5. How to vote
It turns out it’s actually really simple: just stare at the ballot wondering which awful choice of president to vote for, and then fill in the corresponding circle.
6. How to prepare for a major hurricane
Thanks to Hurricane Irma, I had to learn how to prepare for a hurricane to hit my home. That included waiting in long lines for gas, walking through Publix seeing the bare shelves, and walking through neighborhoods with houses boarded up like they’re preparing for the apocalypse. I had to go through all my belongings before I evacuated and had to think about what I absolutely needed and what I could replace, yet at the same time, somehow manage school and work on the side. Thankfully, we didn’t get any bad damage, but it was still a terrifying and eye-opening experience in the days leading up to the event.
7. Taking care of myself when I got the flu
Having the flu is already a miserable experience, but when it’s during finals week, I still have to go to work, and I don’t live at my parent’s anymore, it’s really not a fun. I think that week or two was the most sleep I got all semester.
8. Working two jobs may look good on paper, but not in reality
At the beginning of 2017, I ended up working two jobs while still going to school full time. It looked good on paper because the schedules wouldn’t overlap, but waking up at 6 A.M., working until noon, going to school, and then going to another job until midnight was not doable for me.
9. How to be a leader
When I ran for president of USFSP’s local Sigma Tau Delta (International English Honor Society) chapter, I knew that I was going to have to learn to be a leader because it wasn’t one of my strong suits. I’m still working on this one, but I’m getting there.
10. There’s only so much I can actually do/only so much time in a day
There were so many clubs and organizations that I wanted to join and be a part of, but at the end of the day I still had work, school, and homework. There are only twenty-four hours a day, so I just had to decide what was actually important to me.
11. Don’t take five upper-level classes
I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying I didn’t realize how much more intense it was from taking five general education classes.
12. It’s okay to not have all As on your transcript; no one is perfect
I remember when the grades for the Fall 2016 semester came out, and there were two Bs glaring on my transcript. As a perfectionist, I really wanted to give up after that. Fortunately, my more stubborn side took over and worked to get my GPA back up.
13. Ice cream can solve almost anything
Seriously, Ben n Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie ice cream got me through so many hours of homework; it made the long nights bearable.
14. How to live without my phone for two weeks
I already wrote an article about this, but I ended up dropping my phone and taking it in to get it fixed last year. I learned that I am way more attached to the phone than I thought I was. But I survived, so it can be done.
15. No matter how busy you are, you can make time for people you care about
In the Spring 2017 semester, I was incredibly busy, but I still made time for the people that I cared about. Even if it was just sending a quick text that I wouldn’t be able to talk for the next few days, I still took the five seconds to do that. Even though my calendar turned into a coloring book from color-coding different events, I could still find time in my schedule for the people that were more important to me. Being busy isn’t a good enough excuse.
16. Some friends/groups are only meant to be in your life for a short time/that time
Everything is always changing, and the same goes for people. No friend or group of friends are always going to be there; they may just be in my life to help me get through a certain period of time. However, I can always cherish the memories that I had with them. I learned to not be upset about it when people move on, but rather to enjoy it while it lasts.
17. It’s okay to be single
Most people who know me know that I’ve been single for roughly the past two years (aside from a few random dates), and I don’t regret it at all. However, in the past year I turned down a lot of dates simply because I just needed to take some time for myself and figure out what I was doing in life. It was nice to just be able to focus on my own personal growth for a little while.
18. You’re not going to find the right relationship if you’re not happy
In today’s culture, it seems like there is always pressure to be in a relationship even if you just got out of one. We all know that one person who jumps from relationship to relationship with no break in between. After taking some time for myself, I realized that I wasn’t going to find the right person to be in a relationship with unless I took a break from dating and figured out how to be happy without depending on someone else.
19. How to be happy
I told a lot of people that this past year was the happiest I can remember being in the longest time. I think an important key to that was learning how to be alone and not let my happiness depend so much on other people. I definitely feel like I’m in a good place at the end of this year, and I’m amazed at how far I’ve come compared to some previous ones.
There are many more things that I learned in that span of a year, but these were some of the most important or memorable. Here’s to learning more and building on these in the next chapter of my life.
HC,
Alyssa Harmon