Recently, as I watched my birthday rapidly approach, I was hit with a wave of realization ‘ I’m turning 20 this year.

This is a huge landmark, albeit in my relatively short life. I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t a teenager. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been looking forward to this birthday for quite some time. I’m tired of being looked at as just another stupid kid. But what does this birthday really mean?

When I was a kid, I was told that I would become an adult when I turned 18. But when I did, I was told that I wouldn’t be an adult until I was in my 20s. Now that my 20s are just around the corner, I don’t know if I’m an adult yet.

Adulthood seems like this dark shroud that symbolizes the end of spontaneity and fun, at least from where I’m standing. I’m a 19-year-old girl about to turn 20; I’ll be graduating college in a few short months; I’m trying to get into law school; and along the way I’d like to enjoy myself as much as possible. Will turning 20 mark the end of fun and the beginning of adulthood, or will it mean nothing more than another year passing?

How do we know when we’ve made the transition from adolescence to adulthood? Is there a moment-to-moment change we make on our birthday? Or is it something that eventually happens to all of us?

Maybe we won’t realize we’re adults until we’re in the midst of leading an adult life. Every year on my birthday, somebody asks me if I feel older. The answer is always no. I never feel older until I sit down and actually reflect on the time that has passed. So perhaps one day I’ll wake up and wonder, ‘When did I become an adult?’

But what does this notion of adulthood really mean? Does it mean anything more than hitting a certain age? Is age more than just a number?

At nearly 20 years old, I still heavily identify with my 15-year-old self. Yes, things have changed, but at my core, I’m still the same person. My mother still identifies with her teenage self even though she hasn’t been a teen for more than 25 years. So maybe age is just a number telling us how many years we’ve been alive, not who we are as people.

But what of the 15-year-old girl who identifies more closely with middle-aged women? Maybe age is more than how many years you’ve been alive. It could be a state of mind.

Many of the adults I’ve met are more similar to the teenagers I know than either party would like to admit. They still enjoy many of the same things and have similar responsibilities, they just go about them differently. Instead of going to school, they go to work. They both still come home at the end of the day and want to have fun with their friends.

Is adulthood really this dark, dismal abyss we’re all going to get sucked into eventually? Is it really the end of our lives as we know it? Probably not. True, we’ll all end up being considered adults. But it’s not the end of the world. As long as we don’t forget who we are, we’ll forever remain the teenager we are at heart.