How to Be Seventeen

Julia Butterfield

“It was suddenly being hungry, tired, hot, furious, so unbelievably startling sad.” —Daniel Handler, Why We Broke Up

“’Oh! How good it is to be your age!’ pursued Anna. ‘That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending and out of that vast circle happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is.’”—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Spend too much time staring at yourself in the mirror. Stuff too many friends in the backseat of your mom’s sedan. Drive too fast or too slowly or forget to indicate when you turn. Have too many dumb inside jokes. Scotch tape things to the walls of your room. Dye your hair on impulse. Get to know 3 AM. Be obsessed with having the perfect soundtrack for everything. Worry so much about what other people think of you that you never think of them. Make a decision one week about what class you're going to take next year on a whim, but a week later agonize over whether to buy that red shirt that looks good on you but what if you don’t like it later? Write your name in the steam on the mirror after you take a shower. Date yourself when you mention The Proud Family to someone four years younger than you and they have no idea what you’re talking about. Wonder if this is how adults feel when you’ve never heard of Lesley Gore. Spend fifteen minutes searching for that shirt you must wear today or that book you must read right now because only it is perfectly suited to how you feel this moment, only to realize that it was right in front of you the entire time. Feel like death if you have to wake up at 6 AM but happily stay up until 6 AM. Promise yourself every week that you're going to start reading more or eating healthily or going to bed earlier or washing your face with that acne cleanse your mom bought you. Date someone and be struck by the terrifying realization that you will either break up or get married. Let everything be a crisis. Say things ironically so much that it stops being ironic. Have weird hair or a nose that’s too long or shoulders that are too square or eyes that are too far apart. Judge everyone. Wonder if everyone else judges you. Think about college so much that you start to forget what it actually is. Suddenly feel lost. Suddenly start to panic about nothing. Suddenly find everything funny for no reason. Suddenly have an existential crisis. Worry too much about the future. Feel like you’re always waiting. Feel like your friends know you better than your parents do. Get nervous when adults say that these are the best years of your life and wonder if you’re doing something wrong. Want simultaneously to leave behind everything you know and reinvent yourself and do all you can to ensure everything stays the same forever. Hate everything. Love everything. Change your mind. Worry about being cliché. Wonder if you're too young to be nostalgic. Wonder if your friends feel this way. Wonder if your parents felt this way. Wonder if your parents feel this way. Wonder if all adults feel this way. Wonder what adults do with their time. Yell at your parents. Perfect the dramatic storm out. Learn to drive and think it’s the coolest thing ever for about three weeks. Never talk to someone outside of class until one day you have to work on a history project together and realize that if things had gone a little differently you could have been best friends. Go back to never talking to that person outside of class. Fidget. Gossip. Giggle. Be Angry. Take too long to finish your math homework. Watch bad movies late at night with your friends. Still look for shapes in clouds. Wonder if you’ll be like this when you’re thirty. Decide to make mac and cheese at 1 AM. Lose your phone. Lose your keys. Lose your physics notes. Have parents who don’t understand that you don’t want to talk about it. Realize that the universe does not revolve around you. Reject that out of hand. Eavesdrop. Cry. Make-out. Yell. Climb trees. Complain about the same three things. Play your music loudly and sing along badly. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at yourself so no one else can. Dance in your room like nobody’s watching. Lie in bed smiling to yourself about how it felt to be kissed. Sneak onto the roofs of buildings or wish you were daring enough to. Feel like nothing can hurt you. Feel like everything will hurt you. Become obsessed with preservation. Not know everything. Not yet, anyway. Sometimes just run, simply because you can, because it feels good, because the sun is out and the sky is clear and for the few seconds (or minutes) until you are tired and achy and out of breath, everything is perfect.