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By Macy Waddle
I remember the day before my seventeenth birthday, my mom told me, “Oh this year won’t be nearly as exciting as the last. Seventeen is such a weird age to be.” To be frank, I agreed with her, as I turned seventeen on November 5th, 2020, when nothing was nearly as exciting as it was before. I was pleasantly surprised with that birthday; my socially distanced field hockey banquet happened to be that day, and my then-boyfriend took me out for dinner. While unconventional, it was one of the best birthdays I’ve had, and this set the tone for the rest of my experience as a seventeen-year-old. At seventeen I experienced my first love and my first heartbreak, my first major decisions I made on my own, and a lot of memories that served as formative experiences for me (dancing to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” in my friend's backyard at ‘fake prom’ was definitively one of those).
I don’t think that this experience is unique to me either; this past fall, a social media trend was circulating, where users were celebrating their life today because “the world didn’t end when I was seventeen.” My classmates in high school also experienced life-altering experiences at the age of seventeen, but again I saw this as a byproduct of isolation during COVID until this trend arose. Seeing middle-aged people and above reflecting on their lives as seventeen-year-olds showed me how important this “in-between” year is, whether it’s for better or for worse. There is a reason that so many songs mention being seventeen.
Having this realization about the importance of seventeen has changed my approach to another “in-between” year, twenty.
Life as a twenty-year-old is interesting, especially in a college setting. You are no longer new to college, and no one is particularly checking in to see if you need support in a changing environment as much as there were last year, yet many things are changing. For me and many others, this year I have begun to step into new roles and find my place on campus and in life. I am starting to figure out what I enjoy and what my future looks like, but with these upsides come the downsides. Experimenting comes with trial and error and for me, overbooking myself with things leads me to have to make difficult decisions about what to prioritize. It comes with stress, which can negatively affect my relationships and development (although in my opinion, stress is not always negative). But without risk, there is no reward.
My growth this school year alone has been so significant that even I can see it with very little self-reflection. My confidence in my abilities has skyrocketed, I took a risk to run for a Student Government Position, which I would have never done at the beginning of this school year, and have found my niche in my academic studies. I have changed both personally and professionally for the better, not without struggle though. My half birthday is May 5th and already so much has happened, I can’t wait to see what the second half of twenty holds. Life is too short to overlook what people deem “in-between” years, and I have found these times are where the most growth happens.
But maybe I am wrong, I’ll check back in at 23 and let you know.
Macy Waddle is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2026. She is studying political science and Spanish at the University of Louisville.