when I'm no longer a punk teenager...

In almost exactly one month, I will be twenty-years-old. Gone will be my days of my angst-y teenage rebellion. Gone will be the days of screaming at my parents, locking myself in my room for hours so that I can paint my fingernails black and listen to the All-American Rejects and. . . er, other bands that are popular with the kids?

OK, so I never went through a big "teenage" phase. At least I don't think I did. I never broke a bunch of rules or colored my hair blue or anything like that. So now that those years of late adolescence are nearly over and I am starting my life as a twenty-something, it doesn't really feel very different. It kinda feels like I'm already an elderly woman living inside a young person's body (example: I just used the phrase "young person". And also, I enjoy Werther's Originals and the occasional nap. and cats. old people LOVE cats).

During my last adventure blog-stalking, I ran into this list of 20 things to do in your 20s. It was interesting, but a lot of it was all serious like "figure out what type of person you want to marry" and "research what retirement plan you want" and blah blah blah. And I read it and went "whatevs! I'm partying it up when I'm 20 and I'm gonna do what I want!" Just kidding. but I don't really plan on being that serious until I'm really old. Like 24.

I don't ever really make goal/resolution lists, but I decided that it could be kind of fun to create a list of things I want to do this year. So here is my in-no-order-of-importance-not-so-serious-things-I-hope-to-accomplish-this-year-as-a-20-year-old-but-are-really-not-related-to-my-age-because-being-20-means-that-nothing-really-changes-except-that-I-am-a-year-older-to-the-legal-drinking-age-when-the-real-fun-begins-justkiddingmom&dad-list:

1) explore the West coast
2) fill all of the notebooks I own before I buy any new ones
3) send more letters
4) learn to cook at least one delicious meal well
5) finish knitting that scarf I started about a year ago
6) go to the opera
7) travel to another country with a completely different culture than America (?)
8) get a radically different hair style just for kicks
9) go on more spontaneous adventures around charlottesville
10) study the old testament in-depth
11) read the entire LOTR series
12) drink less coffee. save the money and donate it to something more worthy than my caffeine addiction.
13) start a collection of something. (like buttons or postcards or tea cups....something like that)
14) go to good concerts
15) take more time to do arts&crafts
16) go on a sailboat
17) do that thing in A Walk to Remember that is corny but still cute where they straddle a state-line and are in two places at once
18) go to the piano-practice rooms twice a week at school
19) take a swing-dancing class
20) remember to write down my dreams when I wake up every morning.