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I just turned 18, and, amongst the other joys that come with being a legal adult, I’ve been staring down one in particular for the past several weeks — voting.

Cue scene, this is Alyssa vs. the beast of absentee ballot registration. I came in ready to fight, equipped with my driver’s license, laptop and vague understanding of legal jargon, and I left an absolute mess. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue what was going on for half the paperwork. I called my county office only to be forwarded to two others, and I mailed out registration forms only for them to be returned. I fumbled over lots of words (what even is a provisional?), printed out forms for the wrong states and watched as my desk imploded into a mess of papers.

Ultimately, I found myself swaddled in a blanket in my dorm room at 11 p.m., phone in hand, waiting to get taken off hold with my local election office. My desk was littered with half-filled forms, postage and questionable attempts at writing my dorm address (Where does the room number go? Do I even live on a street?) and I was adamantly fighting the impending doom of an 8 a.m. lecture the next day. I slammed my phone down and decidedly declared to myself that yes, democracy could absolutely wait until I got seven hours of uninterrupted sleep.

This unfortunate scene repeated a few more times, and, after the third night of failed paperwork, I asked around for some help. However, the general consensus was that voter registration, at least from a university, is decidedly complicated.

“The first time I mailed in an absentee ballot, I mailed it to the wrong office,” one floormate told me. “So as long as you don't do that, I think you’re great.”

“You know, I don’t actually remember if I sent mine,” someone else said, “I filled out the forms, but I don’t remember if I actually mailed them. I still think about it today.”

“I filled out forms for the wrong state!” someone else exclaimed. “But they never said anything about it, so I have no clue what happens now.”

All of these stories did make me feel a bit better. If so many other people were having confusing experiences with voting, maybe it justified the hours I spent waffling around on the phone with my county’s election office. There were also, I noticed, other kinds of midterms and elections on peoples’ minds.

“John Knott!” One of my friends cut me off abruptly, “John Knott, John Knott, John Knott!”

“I get that the midterm election is coming up,” someone else declared, “but I have midterms too. And this is a very scary Sunday.”

Ultimately, I did exit my battle a registered voter, albeit with a drained phone battery and six fewer postage stamps than what I came in with. Tonight I will go to sleep feeling thankful I don’t have to do it again until next year.