Popularized on TikTok primarily, though still prevalent in many other forms of media, the â19 theoryâ gained popularity with young women and men sharing their less-than-ideal experiences being 19-years-old. Some sides of the internet coin this year as one where you meet a possible partner that will change your viewpoint on love, many sharing they had their biggest heartbreak or messiest relationship during their 19th year. The changes they encountered, the trials and tribulations that year of life put them through, and the palpable shift when the clock struck midnight felt almost universal. Many people use the term âthe 19 theoryâ to vent their experiences on the internet, spreading mass comfort and hysteria at the same time, whether that was the intention or not.
I can’t help but feel performative writing this. Coffee in hand and laptop propped on the wobbly metal table of a coffee shopâs exterior, writing about how hard and awful it is to be 19. I do ultimately feel lucky to have the privilege to write, to speak, to think about the age I am and soon won’t ever be again. Maybe that is what it means to be 19, feeling lucky for your ability to exist and embarrassed for taking up space. There is so much good in the bad, and bad in good, but neither can exist without the other. I’m starting to think being 19 means learning to understand that.
While reading, I invite you to remind yourself what it was like to be 19. The future is so full of possibilities and yet not quite fitting in anywhere, feeling like an outsider in a world where no one is really on the inside. Such an easily forgettable year for many and yet a pivotal one, humbly reminding us childhood is not forever and at some point, things begin to change, both for the better and worse. For me, 19 feels like development. It feels like long commutes to school and first apartments I can hardly afford. It feels like pasta dinners, maybe a little too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and re-reading nostalgic childrenâs book series before settling in bed and scrolling unceasingly before my eyes finally close. It feels like making new friends, building bridges, and burning some down in the process. Or maybe letting them burn, because they’re just not meant for you anymore.
19 can be a really ugly year. It is the year of teen death and adult rebirth. It feels like the bittersweet time spent between friends, knowing these moments are fleeting and the time spent together may be shorter than intended. It feels like growing out of some people and growing into others.
This was the age I had to hold myself up on my own. I went through a heartbreak this year (as many of us do), and it changed my perspective on things. For the first time in a really long time, I didn’t have an immediate hand to hold when I felt unsteady. Instead, I had a pen in hand and paper in front of me, my own words tasked with keeping me company. For the first time ever, I didn’t have my momâs eyes readily available to look into for comfort. Her gentle words spread the warm feeling of stable relief as she reminds me she has seen my every form and loved them all the same.
Instead, I held my own hand, changed my shampoo back to hers, and gave her a call. Breathing deeply, closing my eyes, and suddenly she’s holding me again. I’m 16, it’s 2 a.m., and my prom dress is soaked with spilled tears over a boy I no longer remember. Only when I reopen them, I’m no longer in her arms, I’m no longer 16, and that dress gathers dust in the closet of a room I haven’t slept in in a long time. Instead, I lay alone in the dark room of a home I made with my friends. The photos lining the walls stare at me, reminding me I’m not really alone. The decorations and post cards gathered from places I, myself, went to. The memories that belong to them remain only mine.
I find myself pondering this idea that Grammy-winning musical artist Lorde shared with the public when she was experiencing the ripe age of 19-years-old. How teenagers know something children have yet to learn and adults struggle to remember â feeling young, without responsibilities, experiencing the world and all it has to offer. Feeling every emotion in all its extent, love, loss, regret, hope, passion, angst, anger, freedom, feeling like that intensity will last forever. The feeling of emotion is all-consuming and constant, like something you put on over your clothes on your way out the door, a jacket of existence that goes wherever you go, both keeping you warm and burning you up at the same time.
19 really isn’t so bad. I know I may make it sound that way, but it is one more leaf in a forest of many that have yet to be turned over. One more page in a book that has never been opened, where the spine has not yet been broken, and the edges are only starting to fray. It is one single year of your life where you still wake up, still make yourself breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and still scroll/read/count the imaginary sheep endlessly before bed. It is just one year, a big one for many, a small one to a few, but still, just one drop of water in your lifeâs ocean.
I’m hoping someday, I look back at these words and remember what it felt like to sit at the wobbly table of a coffee shopâs exterior, struggling to find a way to explain how it felt to be alive in the time of change. I will think back to that day in my prom dress, feeling heartbroken in only a way a 16-year-old girl could, and feel it to its full extent. When I think of 19, I hope to be filled with the joy of growth, of friendship, of change. To remember the feeling of starting over, of growing into myself, and of being full of possibilities. I hope to remember every version of who I have been, and bring them with me into who I have yet to be. I hope to never forget how it feels to be young, to see the world for the first time, and feel every single thing it has to offer to me.
Though my body may age, my skin may become wrinkled, and my mind foggy, I hope my soul stays the same, remaining just as it was during what could have been a much uglier 19.