Dear Amy at 19,
The year starts off with a bang — not really. A few days before our birthday we find out that the cost of an eye exam goes up when you hit 19, so we go the day before our birthday and it turns out that we need glasses. We think its funny considering how often we would wear other people’s glasses to add an accessory.
Alex knows that we aren’t a huge fan of birthdays because they always go wrong, but he endeavors to make it better and sets up a 19th birthday party for us, which is a surprise that we pretty much ruined. He contacted a bunch of people from high school and the college, and they all showed up for the most part. We told him a week before the date that he should do throw together a few people and he looked at us oddly… which is how we figured out that he had already planned something. Everyone around the table… kind of… orders us a drink and then we open presents; Kurtis wrapped his gift in elastics, so there will be a bit of difficulty.
Our first year of college is underway and everything seems to be piecing together. We go on an amazing field trip to the observatory in Penticton and surprisingly almost no one goes – there are about four or five of us – including our lab partner for Astronomy; its important to note that finding a lab partner was one of our worst fears since we didn’t know anyone, but Kevin is awesome and super helpful for the math portions. As we start our second year, we think about the potential to continue on to a Bachelors after all and start to look into student loans. Contrary to what half of your family and Alex’s will say – this isn’t a bad thing. We are still paying off our student debt, but we learn a lot and make some interesting memories.
The best part about college is definitely our professors. From Creative Writing to English to Astronomy – all of the professors at the College are interesting characters themselves and are passionate about what they are teaching which is huge. Learning from someone who doesn’t want to be there is boring and we dropped most of those because we couldn’t stand it. Eventually we discover a website that lists good and bad professors… its accurate for the most part, but a lot of the posts are just biased from one encounter. You’re warned.
We start our first year as a Brownie leader in September and on our way to our first meeting we get in a car accident. A girl decides to turn left across traffic and later tells the police officers that she didn’t see our car. Paperclip, our second car, is totalled. The ambulance driver tries to tells us that we should be way more banged up than we are and it is probably thanks to our car that we can still walk. Our main concern is that we let the Brownie unit down, and Karen’s wedding is the weekend after; we still go, bruises and all, and make the most awkward maid of honor speech of all time. At least that is how it feels.
Since we are 19, we also get to vote for the first time. It’s an odd experience because we actually just go to confirm that everything is in place for us to vote and the lady let’s us know that this is actually our advance voting station so we can vote right there. We’ve voted for other things before, but never in a capacity like this so it is very exciting for us.
This is also the year that Alex graduates from High School. We wear Mama’s dress from when she was our age as a grad dress and look a little vintage. This is the last time this dress will fit us – for now – so enjoy it. We’ve been wearing it for years since it somehow ended up in the tickle trunk, and it finally fits us. It’s amazing and we still have it just case we manage to squeeze into it one day. Hold on and just be patient, everything turns out one way or another.
-A
A. N. Stetzl 