Graphic by David Matos
When I turned 18, I went to my standard bi-annual physical at Kaiser Permanente and what the doctors found was shocking; not to them, but to me. The space right between my hippocampus and my prefrontal cortex housed a 13-year-old who can’t drive, lives with her parents, doodles in class and is completely unworried about what her future holds. She’s a parasite that feeds off my nostalgia and my anxieties about the future. An entire human being, living in the crevices of my brain. Though shocking, the doctors said this was common for people my age, but there was no telling when or if it would go away.
The interesting thing about having a 13-year-old stuck in my brain is that it’s common, but no one seems to talk about it. I was a teenager only two years ago, and while I’ve matured a whole lot, this lingering feeling of adolescence hasn’t fully gone away. It’s daunting to think that my flaws that were once quirky and could be condensed into a cute, coming-of-age, life-lesson-learning film are now pathetic, and suddenly, I am the only person who is responsible for me. I am no longer legally an adult. I am an adult. With my 20s rapidly approaching, I often wonder does it ever even go away — the 13-year-old that lives inside my brain? Will I ever become an adult?
Oftentimes, it feels as if the late teens and early 20s demographic is merely performing adulthood rather than genuinely living it. I had the same feeling in my early days of high school. I was dressing proactively while trying to pull my crop top over my stomach. I was drinking from red solo cups that had nothing in them. I was sexting boys I didn’t even have any romantic or sexual feelings for. I felt as if I was performing this “Degrassi”-esque version of a teenager, and if I didn’t live up to that standard, I was going to watch my journey of becoming a woman pass me by. However, that performance of teenagehood was no longer a performance; it became natural to me. Once I finally became comfortable with being a teenager, I was suddenly an adult.
Several years later, as a woman, I’m still stuck in that juvenile mindset. I’m applying for jobs that I am not qualified for. I’m guessing my way through meaningless financial jargon while paying my taxes. I’m still sexting boys I have no romantic or sexual feelings for. When will this act of adulthood end? When will it become real? While the passage of time thrusted me into adulthood, I still feel like a child. I pretend to know how to navigate these complex adult topics because eventually I will; what other choice do I have?
Of course I’ve matured since I was 13. I have learned valuable lessons over the past several years and I’m starting to become confused and cringed out with the teenage culture that I once participated in. In noticing my adulthood, I learned to take myself out of my high school mindset and stopped trying so hard to be “cool.” I learned that while not entirely socially acceptable, people my age are pregnant, have full-time jobs, have long-term relationships, have casual sex with 26-year-olds, have experienced heartbreak, take smoke breaks at work and do taxes. However, it’s impossible to get completely comfortable with my adulthood with that thing stuck in my head.
After all that, she’s still there. That little 13-year old who asks for her mom’s permission to sleep over at her friend’s house is still there. The 13-year-old is shocked when her friends tell her that they’ve gone past first base even though she has as well.
One day, the doctors called me and told me that to get rid of that child from my brain, I needed it surgically removed. I need to schedule the appointment. I need to work for months to get the money to pay thousands of dollars for this operation with no insurance. I need to put in the work.
Becoming a toddler, becoming a kid, becoming a tween and becoming a teenager were effortless because they just happened to me. When I got my first period, my body did all the work for me. When I graduated high school, government-mandated education policy did the work for me. Hell, even when I got my driver’s license, my mother needed to be there half the time to fill out the paperwork. But now it is just me, myself and I who all have to put in the work. And maybe then, after I put in the work, I will finally be OK doing adult shit like paying rent, paying my taxes, having pregnant friends and finding a job. I will be comfortable. I have to be comfortable. What other choice do I have? Perhaps, I will miss that 13-year-old if she’s removed from my head. Will I want her taxidermied in a jar and placed on top of my fireplace as a keepsake?
For a while, I was under the impression that this eternal limbo, the grief for who I was before I was consumed by maturity, will end once I discard that girl in my head and I’m comfortable in my adulthood. However, true maturity is realizing that the relationship between her and I is more symbiotic than parasitic. She doesn’t necessarily stunt my growth, she grounds me. Her naivety manifests in my current optimism. She reminds me that in the same way I became a teenager, I will become an adult. That awkward performance stage is just a stage and being an adult will become natural to me. There is no checklist I need to complete to get there because I won’t know until I get there. What’s the point of having all those lived experiences if you want to completely discard them?