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Suddenly, I’m 17 again.
I’m worried about what a man will think of me when I sleep with him (either too early or not soon enough). I’m listening to Lana Del Rey. I’m still overly emotional, and it’s always been easy to get lost in her breathy notes and brutally honest lyrics.
I’m worried about money and about school. I’m worried about the unbalanced distribution of my time spent with my family versus on my own life.
I’m worried about boys (men technically, but they still act like boys… I digress).
I am chronically online—screentime is indicative of how much self-control I’ve exercised each week.
I am worried about vanity, and hyper-aware of the fact that my roots need a touch-up (God forbid anyone catch me between versions of myself). Every day is tackled with mascara at minimum, and I am never far from a “conventional attractiveness is social currency” existential crisis.
It’s disorienting to realize that adulthood feels less like growing up and more like circling back to the same emotional checkpoints.
While I’ve outgrown quite a few of my teenage insecurities, some of them—the worst ones—never left.
I am 29 and full-figured, but I’m also still 12 and skipping meals, like I haven’t yet paid my emotional debts. It used to be lip gloss and flat irons, Hollister jeans, and did my crush look at me when we walked by? Now it’s $38 BB cream (with SPF, obviously), vitamin C serum, undereye creams, and does my crush think less of me because I slept with him too soon?
I naïvely hoped insecurity would dissolve with age, but apparently, it just gets more expensive and learns to whisper in a more sophisticated, haunting way.
It’s not insecurity, it’s “maintenance”—as if that excuses the fact that I’m still constantly negotiating my value based on how polished and put-together I look while running errands.
There’s nothing like a grown man acting like a teenage boy to make you feel like you’re back in homeroom, dissecting text messages like scientific evidence. The through-line in dating—whether I’m 19 or 29—is that men and women truly do speak different languages. I’m older now (allegedly wiser), yet somehow the panic around timing intimacy still feels lifted straight out of a high school lunchroom conversation. Meanwhile, I’m over here doing emotional calculus no one asked for, just to avoid feeling foolish. Again. And again.
And then there’s the ever-present hum of the internet—the background noise of our lives.
I measure my wellbeing in screentime averages like they’re vital signs.
If my usage dips, I call it progress; if it spikes, I assume I’m spiraling.
My entire identity feels scattered across saved folders, unfinished notes, and a camera roll full of screenshots meant to remind me of the girl I should be, the girl I was, or the girl I’m trying desperately not to revert back into. Being chronically online means I always feel watched, even when no one is paying attention. Every time I click back through my own story, I wonder if I’m dipping a toe into the malignant narcissism pool.
It’s as if the internet keeps rewarding me for staying in the aesthetic purgatory of girlhood.
The 14-year-old Tumblr girl in me lives on.
Maybe that’s why Lana Del Rey has never fully left my rotation. Her music doesn’t just remind me of who I used to be—it gives that version of me somewhere to sit. Something about her voice makes longing feel cinematic, like my heartbreaks and anxieties are part of some soft-focus indie film rather than just…my life. She makes it feel beautiful to cling to old versions of myself, even as I’m trying to shake them off. Some days I’m not sure if that’s healing or delusion.
The older I get, the more I realize that girlhood doesn’t vanish; it just becomes a quiet roommate.
She’s still here, tapping my shoulder every time I get nervous about a man, every time I panic about money, every time I touch up my makeup or change outfits before leaving the house because I’m suddenly aware of how I might look through someone else’s eyes. She’s dramatic, emotional, a hopeless romantic, terrified, hopeful, insecure, and above all, earnest. And honestly? So am I—much to my own detriment—because I don’t know how not to wear my heart on my sleeve.
With all of that said, I don’t know if feeling 17 again is regression or recognition. Maybe I’m not backsliding; maybe I’m finally noticing the parts of myself I tried to outrun. Maybe adulthood isn’t a straight line at all, but a spiral staircase, and every few turns you pass an old version of yourself. Not to stay, but long enough to nod at her, to understand her, to take whatever you need and keep climbing.
And if I occasionally cry to Lana still? Fine. Now it’s my 7 a.m. commute, not at 11 p.m. in my underwear (okay, still then sometimes too). Maybe growing up just means learning to carry all your past selves without letting them take the wheel. Maybe it means realizing that girlhood isn’t something you grow out of, but something you grow around.
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