9 photos that perfectly capture the teenage coming-of-age

I have always been an archivist. I have kept journals for as long as I can remember, and I’m ashamed to say how many photos are saved on my phone.

It’s funny, though, that even in my most depressed state at 17 — one year from my first suicide attempt and only months after my second — I thought, Yeah. There needs to be a record of this.

I was 17. I was living in Oklahoma, and I just graduated high school. By this point, I knew life was taking me back to Texas to start my undergraduate degree. I was also terribly, terribly depressed. I had more drafts of suicide notes in my journal than I had retellings of regular teen-related drama. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alive.

But, in hindsight, I think I did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had this time capsule hand-delivered to me from my past.

The gist of the project was simple enough: I wanted to go around town and take pictures of the places that held significance to me. Love, heartbreak, joy, sadness. I wanted to remember it all.

Because it was 2013, and the index card trend was still huge on tumblr (hopefully you, if you were on 2013 tumblr, remember what I’m referring to, as I had incredible difficulty finding any examples that weren’t wiped from the internet). So, of course, I had to give my take.

The way I currently remember being a teenager, I would have had no recollection that I had once (several times?) laughed until I cried, and especially wouldn’t have thought that it would be outside my middle school, waiting for the bus.

I can’t believe that I had to go to the hospital each week to see my psychiatrist. If it weren’t for these pictures, I would have never remembered that the moment I fell in love was not at my high school or his car or anywhere else — it was at the community center, during a school dance.

When I stumble across these photos once every year or so, I always take a beat to meditate over them. They feel like the perfect encapsulation of my coming-of-age story: The desperate need to name a feeling and the unstoppable desire to always remember it.

I still can’t comprehend the paradox that was me hoping, with everything in me, that I would die before age 19, while simultaneously giving me now, at 30, and every year after that, a reaching hand that said, I knew if you stayed, you’d want to remember.

as a treat, here’s 17-year-old me actually participating in that decades-old tumblr trend to save you the shameful, cringey googling experience:

Greensickness by Laurel Chen

See Through by The Band CAMINO. I wish I’d gotten into this band sooner, so to heal that regret, I’ll continue listening to this song 3x a day (minimum).

all the love, all the warmth, all the light,

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who i am: a writer, a lover, and a very Black + queer person. i love deeply, forget rarely, and spend most of my time cuddling with my dog, my cat, and my partner.

who i'm not: a therapist, mental health professional, or emergency service. i love hearing the stories of your experiences, but please don't send explicit or triggering details of your story without my prior consent.

if you're in crisis, please call 911 or use any of the following resources:

• National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 988

• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

• Crisis Text Line: Text HELP to 741741

• S.A.F.E. (Self Abuse Finally Ends): 1-800-DONT-CUT (366-8288)

• Eating Disorders Awareness and Prevention: 1-800-931-2237

• RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network): 1-800-656-4673