Simone

To me, 17 sounds older than 18, mostly because odd numbers are typically “edgier” than even ones. (Side note: I really do not want to be 19 next year, because 19 is an absolutely gross number.)

I am 18 now. My childhood is not technically over until I leave for college, which leaves a lot of time left for kid-ish stupidity, but I must admit, a very youthful part of me died on Tuesday night.

I watched my country—which mind you, I never necessarily believed in or ever thought to be above prejudice—make the decision to elect the guy who played Waldo’s dad in The Little Rascals President. Hours before, I had very confidently proclaimed to my friends that I never foresaw a Republican President taking office again in my lifetime, because the party was disjointed, and the liberal public was simply savvier. I was so sure.

As a child, there are these feelings of certainty in everything surrounding you. Your house will always be your house, your cat will never die, your grandpa will never be diagnosed with cancer, Oprah Winfrey will never cease to provide you after-school self-help. In context, these assumptions seem logical, because your understanding of time is incomplete. Knowing this, and having grown up, I thought I had come to terms with random change. I hadn’t.

What I thought I knew was not the truth. That’s a very hard lesson to learn. And, to add another layer to this muddled disaster of uncertainty, despite what I’d been taught before, being a legal adult isn’t making it any easier to learn. ♦