Ever since I was a child I wanted to be older. I was never satisfied with being the youngest, never able to do anything because of age restrictions, always being the one to hold my older friends back. At the age of ten, I wanted to be eighteen and at the age of eighteen, I wanted to be twenty one.

I think for the longest time I’ve wanted to get to that state of being old enough to live a life, old enough to be respected and treated as an adult. I realize now that all this time I’ve lived wanting to be older, I’ve forgotten how to be young.

I always think about that Lana Del Rey lyric, will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Youth and beauty being what we fall in love with first and what ultimately leaves us in the end. Youth is popular, youth is current and relevant. The problem is you can’t be too young.

There’s a point in time, the golden years of one’s life, which everything is supposed to happen to you and that’s where all memories stem from. I always feel like I’m rushing to make those memories. My problem is that I want to grow old but not too old. I want to be young but not this young. It’s in my nature to be unsatisfied, and as I slowly die I keep forgetting to live.

Not to be overly dramatic, but I do feel that my life goals, if I remembered to have any, aren’t being achieved. I don’t think about becoming a big time writer anymore or flying off to Paris for fashion week. I think about how I might not have a job after I graduate, how expensive apartments are, how underprepared I am for living on my own.

My youth scares me. I am nineteen years old, the last chance to call myself a teen, and I feel like an aged grandma without the wisdom. Is it the exhaustion, the stress? Most likely, but I do it to myself. So this scares me.

I am young but I am putting myself under deadlines, imaginary bills and regret. What I do for fun turns into time I’ve wasted from real responsibilities. I can’t have my hobbies because they don’t do anything for me in the long run.

And then I think about how this is all a distraction. Nothing really matters because one day I won’t be here, none of us will be. But the other side of that coin isn’t certain either. I guess nobody knows what really happens after all this, which is as terrifying a thought as life itself.

I want to retract what I said earlier about not being able to be too young, that’s incorrect. Age is how long we’ve been on this planet, but youth, that childlike wonder, can stay for as long as you keep it. I’d rather be a child.

So my golden years and memories are not what I thought they would be. My old soul betrays my body, but I’d like to think my childlike wonder remains for when I need it the most. I wonder if my feelings of youth will come forward again someday, like a young friend, ready to take me away to happier places. Then again, maybe that’s what death is.