Edge of 21

How many coming of ages can come and go?

One day you’re 17 and a couple of months away from adulthood. Your friends are changing, your room is getting smaller and soon you will graduate and start your life on your own.

One day you’re 21 and a couple of months away from adulthood. Your friends are changing, your room is getting smaller and soon you will graduate and start your life on your own.

How many times can you come of age? And also can you really call it that if it starts feeling like a constant process instead of a single life-changing phase?

Coming of age is supposed to mean the realization of growing up. It means that you’ve reached adulthood and maturity and are now seeing the world differently. But it feels like I’ve had the same reset so many times it starts to lose any meaning.

At 17, I was so lost, but I remember thinking I could have it all figured out soon enough. I was sure I had the right friends that would stick with me, the perfect career path in mind and four years of university perfectly planned out. To nobody’s surprise, it did not go as planned. I didn’t study abroad or get the internship I wanted, I lost contact with all of my high school friends and my career path has been anything but straightforward.

At 21, I am now just as lost as I felt before. I have loose plans and long-term goals but no real structure of what will happen in my life in the next year. I hope to keep some friends, I hope my career path leads me to success and I hope wherever my plans end up taking me will be a good place. But I know nothing for certain.

Despite the many coming of ages, I can at least say I’ve learned a couple of lessons from every edge I’ve stood on.

As I stared down at 18, I realized that people in your life are meant to come and go.

I loved my high school friends and genuinely believed they would be guests at my wedding, but in hindsight, none of my friendships back then were made to last. The people we meet through school, work, hobbies, other friends, etc. are not supposed to all be invited to our weddings. Some of them are just there to introduce you to new hobbies, to shape your music taste, to feed you the best food you’ve had and to teach you how to love.

Some people can stay for years, while others leave after a few weeks. Every person who passes through your life leaves something behind that makes you who you are, and letting go of them is part of the lesson too.

At 19, I started accepting that I was allowed to make mistakes.

After years of beating myself up for every failure and every fall, I finally learned that you don’t learn anything if you only succeed. You’re allowed to be wrong, to apologize, to try again, to ask for help when you’re down.

I learned that sometimes you don’t know until you know. It’s not until you’re already halfway out the door that you realize you don’t really want to leave, and you’re allowed to turn around and admit it. I learned it is better to try again and fail than to spend the rest of your time wondering about the what-ifs.

At 20, I was hit with the realization that people don’t last forever and we have to treasure the time we have together.

Although I had learned about people leaving your life at 18, I hadn’t grasped the possibility of death. I met grief at a fairly young age, and I had lost my grandfather at 14, so I knew what it felt like to lose someone you love. But it had been so long without a hitch I had started to take some people for granted, and life has a funny way of reminding you how finite things are.

After a close family death, everything started coming into perspective. Now, my grandmother living in another country and getting sick terrified me, the lines in my mom’s smile were getting deeper and my dad’s beard had as many white hairs as ever. Grief hits you like a truck and doesn’t leave you space to breathe, but it also makes you appreciate the limited time with your loved ones.

Now, I spend more time with my parents whenever I can, even when I’m sleepy or just want to be alone. I always ask my brother to play games together and listen to my sister’s hour-long rants about her latest obsessions. I call my grandparents who are still alive more often and send them pictures of my day through WhatsApp. I answer my aunt’s many Instagram reels and I reply to my cousin’s stories.

The loss and grief never really went away, but they reminded me to love just a little more deeply every day.

At 21, I’ve realized that life takes time.

People always say that life is short, but often forget how full it can be. We focus so much on the fast-paced world we live in that we forget to enjoy it every once in a while. 

My latest coming of age has been accepting that while it’s great to have plans, life is often lived one day at a time. Plans break, things change, circumstances arise, and I need to learn to be happy knowing that not everything will go my way.

I’m trying to take more breaks now, to let myself sleep in sometimes, to make mistakes and accept them, to let go of those who were never meant to stay, to appreciate the people who love me and to take deeper, meaningful breaths.

I have no idea what will come after graduation. I have plans and lists and goals and maps, but I cannot control whatever randomness life has in store.

So I will continue coming of age as many times as needed. I have many more lessons to learn before I can genuinely say I’ve grown up.