Last Year As A Teenager

Roxy Elle
May 13, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Jul 14, 2020

I’m writing this post a few days earlier than I usually would this week for a specific reason; tomorrow (or on Monday for you), I turn 19.

And as another birthday looms, I find myself once more in a particularly reflective mood and have a few thoughts to share.

Firstly, being 18 has been pretty awesome. It’s not been the easiest year of my life, but I can say that it’s the most educational year I’ve had so far.

Educational is a peculiar word to use you might think, but I’ll explain my usage in the context. It has been educational for three reasons:

1) I finished my high school education and moved onto university – self-evidently educational.

2) I have learned a lot about life this year – lots of things have happened this year which have given me first-hand practical lessons when all I’d had before was second-hand experiences upon which to base my outlook on life.

3) I have become more myself. Perhaps that sounds ambiguous, but this year has questioned me on many different occasions, and I find myself with a lot more answers about myself and what I want from life.

I’ve pushed the edges of my comfort zone to new limits, met lots of new wonderful people and come out of my shell.

After seven years in the same school environment, this (admittedly shortened) year at university has been an adventure and a half. And even though there have been a few difficult moments along the way, I wouldn’t change a thing.

In fact, I wouldn’t change a thing of what I’ve done in my life so far. Which I think is a pretty good sign.

As a result of this busy year, I feel like a very different person to the person I was on my last birthday. And somehow, though this year has been complicated, I feel a lot clearer than I did this time last year.

For the last two years on my birthday, I wrote a list of all the things I wanted to achieve by my next birthday. Having completed last year’s list, and much more besides, I decided to write a different kind of list this year.

You may have seen that a couple of weeks ago, a famous singer (I want to say it was Jessie J but I’m not sure) posted on her Instagram story a list of things that she wanted from life.

She said that the experience had provided her with a set of clearer goals and enabled her to actually plan how to achieve those things.

I thought that this sounded like a good plan and thought I'd try it myself. So, here's a few of the items on my list:

- I want to inspire people

- I want to sing

- I want to help people

- I want to be the best version of myself

- I want to make my parents proud

- I want to make money doing something I love

- I want to read every work of Shakespeare

- I want to read all the classic novels

- I want to read every Agatha Christie novel

- I want to have no regrets