To the vast world of adulthood

As Confucius once said: “The benevolent loves mountains; the intelligent loves the ocean.”（子曰：“仁者乐山，智者乐水”）((Pardon my layperson translation of essential Chinese philosophy))

The ocean had accompanied my coming-of-age. There is a surprisingly decent amount of photographic evidence of my preference for the vastness of the squinting horizon and the grit of sand compacted by the grip of my toes. Looking back on the Confucian proverb my mother had shared with me, I think it is a pretty hilarious joke that this was supposed to predispose me towards “intelligence”. My 21st year, the official landmark of my passage into adulthood, was littered with the fumbling scars of some very unintelligent decisions. Nothing unique about that — youth is where we draw inspiration for those “22 things I learnt at 22” video genre that Youtube had valiantly shoved towards me.

Each year, I resist the urge to treat aging as an unremarkable shuttering process, and struggle to find new things to celebrate about wading through the swamp of adulthood. However, the 21st year of my life had overhauled my emotional landscape by sending me through a trial by fire. I feel less like a girl, and more like a woman now. There is no lack of remarkable things in my life this year — from many great sadness that had caused me hair loss, to the deepened emotional intimacy with the life I had created at the altars of Harvard. The one thing that I had found invaluable was reflections drawn from these experiences, the one character trait that I personally feel counts towards my supposed “intelligent” predisposition. In a cliche struggle to subvert the typical “22 things I learnt a 22” genre, I want to turn my face towards the sun. Here are 22 things I look forward to in the vast world of adulthood.

1. Learn Wine (not an alcoholic) — I want to be able to drink, appreciate, and demystify the terrifyingly standoffish and snobbish world of wine.
2. Run a half-marathon (and not hate myself for it) — still in search of the elusive runner’s high.
3. Learn a new language — why settle for being only effectively bilingual?
4. See the Northern Lights — if I were to have a bucketlist, this would be a worthy bucketlist item.
5. Solo-travel US National Parks — putting all my outfield knowledge to use in this bildungsroman.
6. Advance into gold level ballroom dancing — ballroom dancing had helped develop my sense of womanhood more so than any other activity.
7. Write a short story — being an adult means I know can revise the embarrassingly childish stories I wrote as a kid.
8. Cocktail/Jazz bar hopping — now that I am fully legal by any standard.
9. GPS drawing in Singapore — run and use the route to draw something, another cool bucketlist item.
10. Solo R21 movies — I have not exercised my adult rating privileges yet.
11. Learn Excel — seems like one of those working adult skills I have yet to master.
12. Volunteer at homeless shelter — witness the many adult problems in a society.
13. Plan first house — many of my friends are in the midst of BTO. Since that is not happening soon for me, I will have to find some way to get my own house.
14. Learn reverse parking — parking well is the one sole yardstick of adulthood, and no one can change my mind.
15. Love (without disillusionment) — I will resist the urge to be hurt and remain jaded and guard my heart the way an old person does.
16. Solo club — soak in the vibes, people watch, hopefully I will understand something essential about young adults.
17. Build sandcastle — never too old to do that.
18. Learn cocktail — I want to be able to make my own cool drinks so that eventually I can throw cocktail parties of my own.
19. Do 10 pullups — a strong body helps resist the tug of aging.
20. Do my finances — it is time to upgrade the sad excel sheets keeping track of my finances into something friendlier for proper financial monitoring.
21. Write a bucketlist — time is moving, and I think it’s time for me to take stock of what I want to do with my life.
22. Treat my family better — I step into adulthood and my mother ages towards retirement, and I want to now be responsible for showing her the best things I know, and to have her enjoy shedding the responsibility over me.

In terms of aspirational mottos describing my age, I am in the Boardwalk stretch on a Monopoly board. That is to say — it is prime real estate. Many literary souls have written about mantras for the age range in the 20s. Watch me make the comeback from “it’s supposed to be fun, turning 21” (Swift, 2022) to “no gray hair in my soul, no doddering tenderness, I rock the world with the thunder in my voice, strolling, looking good — twenty two” (Mayakovsky, 1914). For the first time, I feel like birthdays are no longer about cakes and candles, but about turning my gaze towards the vastness of the life ahead, and to wonder what my compass will be, and how I will get across the waters, and where I am headed at the end of the mute distance. My 22nd year will hear my voice before it sees me. I will live up to the savagery of youth and take on the world of adulthood.

Metaphorically of course 😛 Because we all know that I will be physically curled up under my covers and air-conditioning, cowering from the Singaporean heat, and relishing in the taste of being an introverted homebody this birthday.