As I flew over Mumbai, 

I heralded my 23rd birthday with a plastic cup of red wine warming my belly in a toast to myself. The children onboard are disciplined and not wailing; the pink aisle lights are on for optimal sleeping ambience; my eyes feel like it’s been tickled by dandelions and are wearied, perhaps from seeing so little of life. As per annual tradition I try to reflect on another year of wisdom (hopefully) and be deliberate about growing up.

Upon revisiting my mini bucket list from last year’s reflections, I found that surprisingly, without intending to, I had checked off many of them. I wonder if that is how we mature in age — growing naturally into a predisposition as flowers tilt towards our chosen sun, or perhaps as towers lean more visibly with increased verticality from a pre-set foundation. This year though, instead of aspiring towards goals in adulthood, I think that the ripe old age of 23 put me squarely into adulthood and I want to reflect on what that means. A lot of my reflections came from hurriedly jotted down epiphanies in my notes app, in cumulative drops, such that when I try to sit down and do a retroactive summary, growth feels unexpected when I see it all in full force the first time.

I thought, and especially so in my early 20s, that growing up was learning to take my parents and other adult figures off the pedestal in the podiums  of my mind. I have a lot of foundational habits attributed to them, but I am coming into contact with a lot of problems I am learning to undo too. I am unlearning bad communication styles of Asian households as I am unlearning the pressure to always act more mature and be more grown up for my age. When we stop treating people as more than humans, I think, we then gain the ability to learn well from them. This year, however, this realisation that I had been pretty pleased with to internalise seems in need of updating. The next step of maturity is to still treat these adults kindly despite taking them off the pedestals. Previously I had reacted to, take for example, my mother’s fallibility, as a disillusioned child would — with smugness, with discontent, and with stubborn resolutions to not make the same mistakes. This was separate from loving and respecting her and being a good daughter. There’s no good way to describe this in words, but I will try: I’m thinking of this maturity as perhaps not holding her to the pedestal at all, to realise that I am fully as capable as her in making those same mistakes and that she is fully as capable as I in learning from them and changing. I suspect that the older I get the more I learn what forgiveness means. To me, this realisation of what it means to be an adult was extra important because it showed me that the “pearls of wisdom” I had previously come to were fully infallible and can be revised and improved upon. Therefore, shouldn’t that open all my beliefs, even the ones I consider to be my best, as imperfect and potent with growth?

Perhaps slightly related to this is another important part of adulting: learning to notice and appreciate the extent of what people do for you unnoticed. This struck me one rainy day as I was walking in a big group, and I saw a guy holding out an umbrella over everyone without one with the awkward shuffling to try not to step on their shoes, and to negotiate which corners of his body will get wet, yet the rest of them were so lost in their own conversation they didn’t realise it. As a child will not notice parents’ hard work in packing, planning, and organising family trips, or a government scholar will not realise all the paperwork and people involved in giving them the opportunity to succeed, someone who hasn’t learned to adult yet doesn’t realise all the invisible labour occurring around them because they are suctioned to the irresistible gravity of their own ego. There is nothing wrong with it, up till a certain age. However, noticing all of these made me say thank you much more readily, frequently, and meaningfully. 

Learning the joys of missing out. That is my last epiphany for what adulthood means. Admittedly this might be a more personality driven thing, but I think that I am starting to enjoy moments where I can laze around in bed and hear the world pass by outside. I enjoy not fully understanding conversations after big school-wide events that sparked the gossip mill. There is pleasure in knowing that the world carries on with or without you, and that is soothing to know as it removes part of the dreadful load of adult responsibilities I already cannot shed. Importantly, I think this is a great proxy to gauge my own skills of protecting my own time. Not all experiences are worth having, at least in my opinion. I am proud to be able to be selective of what I am investing time in and what I am missing out on — that I have a life equally worthwhile should I choose to miss out on something, that I have the luxury of choice to separate leisure from work obligations, that I have friends who are alight with me missing out on some experiences without it impacting the quality of our friendship.

There are, I’m sure, many more things that could also be more defining aspects of adulthood. The vague sense of awe we had as a kid looking at a 20 something year old, thinking that they have their life figured out, feels a bit like a betrayal when we get to that age ourselves. It’s not that simple. Maturity isn’t something that we take for granted with age, but is instead earned through reflection and growth. However, I take some comfort in that childlike wonder at adults — I want to be able to earn that admiration by working towards my own growth, and being deliberate with my growth, step by step, year by year, till the end of this life.