18 Things I Wish I'd Learned by 18
1. The passage of time is a lot like over-the-counter medication, sunscreen, advice from parents, and actually getting 8 hours of sleep. No matter how much you don’t want to admit it, and how tempting it is to rattle on that it’s “overcautious nonsense,” “smells like moldy bananas,” or “just doesn’t work for you”…...it has a nasty habit of making things better.
2. Some people, actually, a lot of people, get a bit of the heebie-jeebies when you sit next to them and come to steal, sorry, “borrow” their handwriting for a few hours. When caught, it is apparently not advised to delve into conversations about how much you enjoy in-depth readings of legal documents.
3. No matter how valiant a fighter, you may never win your battle with your darling phone’s idea of how spelling ought to work. For a device that is the result of perhaps one of the high points of human creativity, this space-grey-Siri-box is awfully intolerant of a lexicon littered with made-up words, expressions stolen from imaginary Southern Grandmothers, a good amount of old-timey poppycock, and the letter “u” inserted into words where it really DOES belong. Let’s take a moment to recall the lovely day we told our mom we were “doing meth after school and would be home late” and hope for onwards and upwards.
4. Your average pineapple, peeled and cut, makes approximately 4.5 cups, or 36oz of pineapple chunks. Cans of pineapple come in a variety of sizes, the most common being 20oz and 46oz. Thus, a single pineapple generally will not fill up a can of canned pineapple fully. This implies that, when you sit down to a lovely snack of pineapple from a can, there is likely someone else on earth who possesses a can containing chunks of the same pineapple you are eating. You can share a single poorly-named tropical fruit with a stranger halfway across the world, and something about that is beautiful. I’m pretty sure reading this gave my baseline appreciation for life on earth a permanent boost. Granted, it’s also true that pineapple flesh contains the enzyme Bromelain, which actually breaks down the proteins of your tongue. So who is eating whom? The life lesson here is “Don’t think about pineapple too much.”
5. Apparently, the “Door-Close” button in most elevators is a placebo. Elevator passengers have not wielded actual control over the doors since the 1990s: They need to stay open “long enough for anyone who uses crutches, a cane or wheelchair to get on board,” a result of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act, the paper reports. Pressing the door-close button will not, in fact, cause the doors to close any faster. Will I still slam it harder than I slammed your…. Nevermind..when I’m late and in a hurry? Oh, absolutely.
6. For all the issues people seem to have with money laundering (can’t imagine why,) paper bills are surprisingly great at surviving being put through the washing machines. They come out nice and stiffly folded and probably with objectively fewer traces of cocaine on them. Dear Masha- Earbuds, on the other hand, are not as receptive to All Super Stainlifter. Maybe someday you’ll stop leaving them in your pockets?
7. There will be far too many occasions where you will be willing to give the weight of your hair in gold for a hair-tie (and you’ve got a lot of hair, so that’s a jolly good sum!) Fun fact- you can buy like 20 for a dollar. Stop expecting them to be any less skilled than single socks in the art of disappearing.
8. Every day in one’s life, (with the exception of two, I suppose,) is exactly 24 hours long. Granted, I’m certain that the notion of someone of voting age coming to the shocking realization that clocks, you know, work is a tad concerning. However, there’s something elegantly calming about being reminded of this fact, be it when a certain person (who very much has her shit together, I assure you,) is running an hour late, or when that same person is staring at the not-rising sun when she’s sleepless at 4 in the morning. My favourite unit of measurement is the moment, which is derived from the 1/40th of an hour delineated by Medieval sundials. I’d love to come to terms with the fact that a Day: (noun) dā is “a period of exactly 24 hours, generally misused.” Each such “Day” gives me 960 moments, and I sincerely hope I’ll realize that I won’t accomplish much by shoving the ones I don’t like under my unvacuumed carpets or, on the contrary, looking on the floor to see if there are any extra ones lying around.
9. You live in the 12th Congressional District of New York. That seems like something a Mature Grown Up ought to have known a while ago.
10. It is surprisingly possible to get in touch with “high status” people, be it government officials, well-respected scientific experts, or those who have achieved success with the arts or media. Don’t underestimate the power of putting on your Big-Girl-Pants and picking up the phone.
11. The weight of the average cumulus cloud exceeds actually 1.1 million pounds. There’s room here for some beautiful metaphor about heaviness and having one’s head in the clouds, but we’re apparently going to have to wait a few more years for that to come to us, to I’ll just pop in the fact that 1.1 million pounds on buy you a 7-bedroom manor in Scotland. You can live in a Jacobean mansion worth its weight in clouds.
12. The main purpose rule (n. : a doctrine in contract law: a promise to pay the debt of another need not be in writing to be enforceable if the promisor was motivated by a desire for advantage or benefit called also leading object rule; compare statute of frauds.) does not apply in New York State. Just putting it out there that this would have been REALLY nice to know about a week ago.
13. Emails that you’re afraid to read have this frustrating tendency to remain in your “unopened” inbox for an irritatingly indefinite amount of time. They don’t seem to disappear after slamming your laptop shut, going for a 2 hour run, or working on something else for a few hours. The burning unread mail doesn’t even succumb to your hiding behind a shelf and blowing on your monitor REALLY, REALLY hard. I know this is truly shocking - you might want to sit down for a minute.
14. People are a lot more open to the idea of ingesting something called “Nutritional Yeast” after a couple of beers.
15. Statistics are lovely things to rattle off, throw into casual conversation, attempt to spur action with, make up entirely (shhhh,) or to genuinely open one’s eyes. They can, however, be beaten. You’re stronger than you know.
16. Apparently, some middle schoolers don’t know what flash drives are. Don’t think about this one too close to bedtime.
17. There are other people who find eyelash curlers to be absolutely bloody terrifying. You’re not alone.
18. This one sounds a bit like the result of smoking some “special spinach,” so bare with me on this one. The world becomes a much more welcoming when you think of it as being all-encompassing. If you think your world is falling apart, all will appear much brighter if you discard the notion of being trapped in your own world, look up at the nearest quite-sturdily-standing building and realize that the collective world, which you’re lucky enough to be a part of, is going to be quite alright. The same principle applies with regards to the people that I’m lucky enough to have in my life - if their “world” is crumbling to pieces, then my world cannot be whole.
Lastly, an enormous, massive thank you to absolutely everyone for the kind, wonderful birthday wishes. I'm incredibly grateful to have such amazing people in my life, and I'm more thankful than I can put into words to alive and healthy and able to see the beautiful warm weather, twirl around, make some great teenage decisions, and celebrate this birthday with all of you - I certainly can't take this to be for granted, but I'm so, so happy that it could happen.
