When you turn 18 years old, society says you've become an adult. You begin filing your own tax returns. You can get a credit card. You can vote for your elected representatives.
I find it ironic that society chose 18 as the age of adulthood. Most of us are still dependent upon others and not even fully cognitively developed at that age–we're teenagers drifting in and out of love, laughing and getting into trouble and spending our money on things we shouldn't. But 18 for me has been the most sobering year of my life, and as I'm exiting 2017, I can't help but feel like I've matured more than I ever anticipated or even desired.
So if you'd like to get to know a little more about me, or if you had a year filled with exhilarating highs and crushing lows and want to know you're not alone, read on. If not, simply skip to the end, where I've written a couple of takeaways to make things easier for you.
I'm good at writing about science and politics and but I'm not very eloquent at crafting stories so I like to make lists. So whether you like them or not, to start my story off, here is a list.
In 2017, I got cheated on and broken up with. I was thrown into two major leadership positions. I traveled to 5 countries. I wrote 114 pages of papers. I read 22 books. I got a full time job. I lived in Asia for a month and a half. I found some really great friends. I finished my freshman year of college. I did really badly in some ski competitions. I got better at skiing. I learned that some people will hate you and there's nothing you can do about it. I cried. A lot. I quit my full time job. I felt what it's like to lose someone you love.
That's my first list. So now here's your story.
On the last day of my internship at a magazine in Thailand, as I was wrapping up my feature piece, my mother tried calling me. Because I was at work, and because I knew answering a call from anyone internationally cost an exorbitant amount, I didn't answer. She asked me to call her back–it was urgent. I rose from my ant-infested desk and walked downstairs; stepped outside onto the sidewalk of the quiet business park baking in the hot Thai sun. The first words out of her mouth working their way out through jagged breathing and tears told me something was wrong. She said that my brother had been in an accident.
I'm not kidding; I physically collapsed.
'An accident.' That was all–not even a 'bad accident', not even 'he's in the ICU'. And yet I found myself peeling my arms off the warm pavement, forcing myself to sit up and listen as she explained how he had been speedflying and fallen somehow, and he had to be transported to the hospital via helicopter. That was all we knew for those first few hours as my parents drove the distance from Jackson to Salt Lake. It was 11 in the morning for me, but almost 1 AM for them. Shellshocked, I walked past an oblivious room of coworkers, went up to my boss, and simply said, "I think I need to leave." She gave me a ride to the house I was staying in, where I went to my room, didn't turn on my air conditioning, got under a blanket, and curled up for who knows how long as I awaited more news. In those antagonizing hours, I had a few visitors, one of whom asked if I had wanted to turn the fan on, seeing as it was nearly 90 degrees in my room. I recall telling him that I wanted to 'sweat this out'. But the feeling I had wasn't a sickness I could simply shake or take a few pills and rid myself of. I didn't sleep a single second that night, and in the earliest hours of the morning I finally received an update that my brother was in an unresponsive state: not exactly a coma, but essentially a state of unconsciousness with minimal brain activity. Doctors were unsure whether he would recover or not, but my friends and family in America were positive. I knew so little in that time period, but I knew one thing: I had to be home.
And so I arrived at the airport one day later exactly as I had planned to months before, but not to go explore the sandy beaches of Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta but rather to fly home as quickly as possible. I remember blasting music through my earphones and sobbing uncontrollably as I was laid out on an uncomfortable airport bench surrounded by thousands of people. Not one person stopped or said anything to me. I remember spending an hour in the bathroom during my layover because I felt so nauseous I thought I would throw up. I remember watching movie after movie on my 16-hour flight back because I knew if I didn't have a distraction, the tears would return. (Watching A Dog's Purpose was a mistake in that sense, as it is a very emotional movie.)
I touched down in Salt Lake just as I remember doing hundreds of instances before, but the experience felt alien this time. A kind woman in the row in front of me offered a tissue, and I thanked her and stepped onto American soil for the first time in 2 months. I've never seen my parents look more frail than they did waiting for me in the airport entrance. We drove to the hospital; I thought about how weird driving on the right side of the road was, pushing my brother to the back of my head.
Here is the part where I prefer to leave out detail, but to say the least seeing my brother in the condition he was in was something I never hoped–or expected–to do. I found the warmest group of friends to come home to; something I am eternally grateful for. It's like something I read once that said soldiers coming back from combat, though the war was the worst experience of their lives, felt they almost missed it in a way because of the camaraderie it forged. That's how we felt that night: we were a big mess of tears and alcohol and fireworks and reminiscing and holding each other tight enough to choke. We were going through the worst time of our lives, but we were together.
If you ever go or have ever gone through a period of grief in your life, that is the most important insight I've found yet: that the people who hold you tightest will be the ones who you shouldn't be afraid to turn to when you feel that emptiness coming on late at night, months later, when you remember something funny the person you miss said or you go to text them and remember their phone has been sitting unused on the kitchen countertop ever since you texted or called them last. For me, it was a 'happy birthday' sent in vain.
The day I turned 18, I went to my brother's house and chatted with him and a few other friends into the late night. I didn't feel any older or much like an adult. Who truly does at this age? But nothing quite made me feel older than holding my mom up as she wept uncontrollably into my shoulder by my brother's bedside.
I think I tapped my tear reservoir to the fullest, because I've never cried harder than I did those 48 hours, and when the tears finally stopped flowing, they've refused to come back since. Instead I'm left with a certain hollowness, and when I cry my body shakes but nothing comes.
18 taught me how to be stronger than I knew I was. I summited the Grand Teton, the mountain I grew up admiring, in just over 8 hours. I ran up and down a 10-mile racecourse with 2000 feet of elevation gain faster than I ever ran playing soccer in high school. I worked hard, and filled every second of my time with friends and music and doing the things I loved to do. I flew from Thailand alone to be with my brother in the last hours of his life. 18 taught me to relentlessly go after what I wanted, and to live live to the fullest like my brother always did.
It has been a long first year of adulthood, but it somehow also feels so tangible and recent that I was feeding elephants in Chiang Mai, trekking across snow in Andorra, or watching the total solar eclipse deep in the Wyoming wilderness. I'm sure everyone feels the same way about 2017. We all have favorite memories and bad experiences to reflect upon from the past year.
People now estimate I'm a few years older than my actual age, instead of at the start of the year when it was the the other way around. My friends continually tell me they forget how old I actually am. To be fair, I'm still pretty young, naïve, and bad at a lot of stuff. I still hate green beans and bell peppers. I'm by no means a real adult. But I've learned a few things about life and relationships with people, let alone myself, this year. So to finish this rambling I'll leave you with one last list.
things to remember (alternatively: advice to myself and maybe you)
The most important thing in this life is good relationships. The people we know are the foundation of our well-being, and, more, importantly, how we find happiness. As my favorite Chris McCandless quote goes, "Happiness is only real when shared."
Pursue what you love with reckless abandon. Work hard to reach your goals and you will never be disappointed. Don't give up on something because you think you can't do it. This leads directly into number 3,
Believe in yourself at all costs. No matter what others may say or think, you are the only one who controls your destiny, and ultimately, you should be the only one who determines your self-worth. There’s too much goodness to pick just one quote, but my favorite book is The Power of One and it’s worth a read if you want to understand the importance of this point.
Hopefully if you've kept reading this long, you like lists too. If so, put two notes on your phone, or your fridge, or your bedside. On one, make a bucket list. Check one item off in the next year, no matter how improbable it seems. Prove to yourself you can do it. On the other, make a list of ten things you think are important to live by. This is essentially a wordier version of that, but as a frame of reference anyways here is mine:
If it ain't fun, why do it?
Step outside your comfort zone always
Learn something new every day
Explore, get out there and be active
Put others before yourself
Be confident in yourself and your abilities
Stay humble
Strive to continuously work harder and be better
Bring positivity into the world
Stand up for what you believe in
5. Tell your family you love them more than you think you should. Love your family harder than you think they deserve.
6. Lastly, don't be afraid to open up to others. I'm a very extroverted person, which makes it easy, but everyone needs support every once in a while. If we all understood each other a little better, I believe we'd have a little more compassion in this world.
On that note, I'd love to hear from you. If you have any comments on anything I said, if you want to disagree with me, if you need someone to open up to, or if you'd like to share your lists with me, please feel free.