What feels like just a few days ago, my biggest frustration was Grey’s Anatomy characters ragebaiting me: it was the COVID-19 lockdown; my last year of middle school had come to an abrupt halt. Another day later, I was speed-walking from debate practice and frantically trying to grasp basic thermodynamics concepts in AP Chemistry, which seems so trivial today. Yesterday, I was frantically journaling every minuscule event in hopes of a killer Common App essay topic, binge-reading college application guides at 2 a.m., convinced that one obscure extracurricular would determine the course of my life. Today, I am 20 years old. Blink, and somehow those “days” stack into an entire span of five years. Just like that, being a teenager – and more importantly, the vast majority of my youth – is already behind me.
Milestones like these are, understandably, exciting for everyone. At 13 years old, you’re a teenager and can have your own cell phone (but I didn’t have mine until high school) and even create your social media persona (which I secretly already had since 5th grade). At 16 years old, you can get a driver’s license and finally drive yourself (I still don’t have a driver’s license nor can I even drive). At 18 years old, you unlock many “adult” privileges such as legally entering into contracts (I have no idea what I am even signing) and scheduling your own doctor appointments (my mom still does that for me). Soon enough, I’ll be a middle-aged woman and then a senior citizen who won’t know how to operate whatever technology will exist.
I can no longer say that I am “barely legal.” Although if I were to ask for the kid’s menu right now, they wouldn't question it. Despite my looks fitting in with teenagers — and, mostly, my feeling like one — the responsibilities and looming “adult decisions” are slowly making it clear: childhood is over and adulthood isn’t optional. As an adult, I am supposed to handle my own finances and my own living conditions. However, being confined to a college campus where every necessity is just a short walk or meal swipe away, everything is already handed to me. Still being a student, my only responsibility is to study for exams, partake in my extracurriculars and sprinkle in some self-care.
Absolutely nothing about my daily life screams “adult.” My dining dollars disappear faster than my motivation to study for midterms as I live off overpriced café food with my only cooking expertise being a meager avocado toast. My nervous system can’t tell the difference between being attacked by a bear and having to make a single call to deal with any kind of “real-life” adult task.
Every little decision feels monumental: figuring out what classes to prioritize, calculating a way to distribute my dining dollars and days to order UberEats or remembering to do simple errands such as picking up a package that’s already been left in the mailroom for a few days. I can’t shake the idea that entering the real world where I am employed (hopefully), where I am actually an adult, will be exponentially worse.
I can’t help but wonder if I have even spent my youth well. Did I have the teenage experience? Now that sophomore year is almost halfway done, have I even had a college experience yet? Am I meeting every single expectation and achievement I have set myself as a highly ambitious person or am I just treading water while time slips fast? I never snuck into places I shouldn’t have, never had late-night food runs or gossip sessions with a friend, never even attended homecoming or prom.
Feeling like a chaotic person myself, I can’t help but feel like I was supposed to have a messy, unpredictable and unforgettable reckless phase of youth, filled with moments that just feel so cinematic in hindsight. Instead, I lived a structured routine – each day planned down to the hour, chasing productivity over spontaneity. My nights were filled with bedrotting and doomscrolling while panicking over upcoming midterms instead of making questionable memories. Every moment felt like preparation for the next, leaving little room to actually live in the one I was in.
Sometimes I go through this strange spiritual awakening, staying up until 5 a.m., where I give myself an entire ultimate guide on getting my life together. I’m convinced that I unlock a beast mode version of myself where I will be locked in 24/7, finally cut down on spending by actually prepping my own meals and pile my schedule with activities to craft the perfect CV, all in hopes of becoming a distinguished accomplished adult.
By noon the next day, my peak productivity fantasy quickly collapses, replaced by a strong urge to nap, a craving for a single Fruity Pebble waffle that costs $10 at the Student Center and a truckload of deadlines that seem to multiply (hence, me submitting this article a couple days after the deadline) met with the overwhelming realization that adulting and ultimately becoming a wiser version of myself is much messier than a single past midnight epiphany can prepare me for. However, small victories sneak in despite the chaos even if that’s using my coffee machine instead of going to Brody’s to spend $5 or attending every single lecture, including my 9 a.m.
Yet, maybe that’s part of it: the growing pains of figuring life out without a script. Maybe the beauty of it all isn’t in the chaos I should be experiencing or in a thought that I’m missing, but in the quiet moments of learning to exist: finding comfort in the uncertainty, laughing through the stress and realizing that not every memory has to be cinematic to matter. Maybe navigating these awkward, unglamorous parts of becoming an adult is the real coming-of-age story after all.
Grace Wang is a sophomore from Tuscaloosa, Ala. majoring in Neuroscience. Her column chronicles life's unpredictable, beautiful mess — never neat, always honest and willing to show the chaos, contradictions and awkward truths we usually try to hide.
