Hello, beautiful reader!

I have the most exciting news ever:

16til26.wordpress.com has a brand spanking new identity, and it’s called…

 

16til26* (!!!)

When I was 16 years old, I started this blog called 16til26.wordpress.com.

It started out as a personal blog; I shared whatever came to my head, offered unsolicited advice (or solicited, if someone emails me ohoho) and insight whenever I could, reflected upon shortcomings, and mused on about lovely things in my life. I always emphasized the fact that I am still a teenager and, though I am spewing all of this on the Internet with some sort of naïve confidence, all I can really do is offer perspective.

So, I did that, for about a year and a half.

Then, as I got more feedback from people regarding what I wrote, I realized that there are a lot of people going through the same thing as me.

Then I realized that there are even more people that still have yet to go through the same things as me.

A lot of people will need help, need to know that they’re not alone, need some sort of perspective from someone else.

In a typical American life, you get your license, graduate high school, apply to college, go to college, find a job, find a spouse, find a place to live. On top of all of that, you have to struggle with the negativity of being an angsty blooming adult, the whole “finding yourself” thing, the itch to change the world, trying to get out of slumps that routinely seem to drag you down every two months or so, etc., etc., etc..

Ages 16-26 is a huge and incredibly important period of time that is a behemoth to conquer. We have some vague idea of what is yet to come, but a lot of us are shooting in the dark.

Thus, with all of this in mind, I turned 16til26.wordpress.com (a mouthful) into 16til26*(.com)!

It is still the same web site, aka me sharing with you everything I create, experiences I go through, and all of the little and big things that pop into my head. However, from here on out, I’ll attempt to shed some light on a formative and complex decade of our lives. My experience definitely will not be the same as everyone else’s, I can guarantee that, but I’ll try, to the best of my ability, to highlight milestones and obstacles that I believe a lot of people will eventually have to overcome.

Whether it be college applications, trying to choose a major, how to serve on jury duty, or finding an apartment. Or something a little more abstract, like trying to manage the crippling distress of being 22 and lost in the world or trying to figure out who to trust at 17 and a half. Everything in between! All of it will come to light here.

(I feel like I’ve already been doing this (accidentally), but now I’m doing it on purpose, which makes it 3x better.)

I want to continue to share with the world what I have to say while navigating these present ten years. I write to know who I am now. I write to remember who I was. I write to reflect upon who I want to be. I try to write honestly so that, in 10 years, I can relive everything as it is right now. I’ve done this since I was 16, and I plan to continue until 26 and beyond.

This is my invitation for you to join me for the ride, or to continue your stay if you’ve already been following along!

To be quite honest, I have always felt a bit lost when it came to the blog; I wasn’t sure why I was doing any of this other than the fact that I wanted to share with everyone what was on my mind. But now, after renovating the site, creating a new About and Mission page, I can finally say that I know what I want to do with this and why I am doing it. :’)

Again,

I am in no way an expert on how to grow up/how to be an adult. My word is not gospel. I will make mistakes; I will probably be very unsatisfied myself during certain periods of time.

Yet, despite this, I will grow, and I will learn. That is all I can hope to do.

Join me; I’m happy to share this all with you. :!)

 

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