Nineteen and twenty

When I was maybe eight years old, I decided I wanted to be nineteen. Everyone else wanted to be eighteen, but I figured it would be better to place my ideal later, after I'd had some experience at adulthood. (An extra year seemed, to me, like plenty of time to iron out the kinks.) I considered aiming for after the drinking age, but that was old. Besides, I was pretty sure--accurately--that obtaining alcohol wouldn't be a problem for me if I wanted it. Also, although I only realize this in retrospect, the word "nineteen" is very aesthetically attractive in my mind.

I was wrong about many things when I was eight, but I was right about this one; nineteen has been a really great year for me. It started at the IJA festival, when my birthday was announced at the juniors competition. I got a Kit and had an extremely lucrative adventure in New York City, then I got a Mike and my first real apartment. I took cell bio and physiology and signal transduction, and really got biology as a whole, where I'd only had fragments and glimpses before. I got to spend some time with each of my brothers, and connected with the older two on a more adult level than we'd been able to when we were living together as adolescents. I was a TA, which was a valuable experience. I wrote my undergraduate thesis, which was actually pretty fun, even as it was kicking my ass. I graduated from college, and I got my first salaried job. I think my baseline happiness has been higher this past year than any previous year. There have been a lot of high points, and the low points have been mild and few.

Today, I deposited the last of the checks my dad has been sending me for college, meaning that from now on I'll be supporting myself entirely. Tomorrow, I turn 20 years old. I'm hoping the next year will be as awesome as this past one.

So kudos, eight-year-old me. Well predicted.