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When the map to growing up gets lost

Liana Sabnani, Opinions Editor

I wish I could say that growing up feels like a movie montage. That one day you wake up and everything just makes sense. That you have a moody indie soundtrack, maybe even some early 2010s pop playing in the background as you walk confidently into your future, with your past mistakes wrapped up neatly like a coming-of-age film with a perfectly timed, inspirational voiceover. But unfortunately, life doesn't come with a script or a utopian sound track.
It's easy to romanticize growing up. To believe all of it will come together one day and that you will understand your sense of self and purpose. In reality, though, it's never that easy. It's understanding that even when you think you've got it all figured out, you don't. It’s realizing that the people you thought would stay forever won’t, and the ones you never saw coming end up changing everything. It's nostalgia for something that isn't even over yet. It's the combination of wanting to grow up fast yet also wanting to slow it all down.
I, like lots of people, have spent my whole life trying to make sense of myself. For a while, I believed my column was about untangling the knots in my head and making sense of the world in 1000 words or less. But the more I've been writing, the more I realize that life isn't something you can ever really write on a single document. Life is meant to keep you guessing. It's about accepting that you won't always have an answer, and sometimes that's the best part.
The last few years have taught me that life is a tangled web of events with detours, wrong turns, and plot twists that make even the most melodramatic teen movie envious. Like how you may be confident of something for years and then wake up one day to find that you feel the exact opposite.
So, no, growing up is not a straight line. It drifts and doubles back. It's taking the long way just because it can. And it's about recognizing that nothing good or bad lasts forever, and finding peace in that. It's about knowing that even when everything seems to be falling apart, it always comes back together.
So this is for everyone who has been reading my words, whether you've been following along from the start or you have just now stumbled across them. For those who have felt that they are running out of time. For those who have changed their minds, their stories, or walked away from situations they thought they could never leave. This is for those still figuring it out, like me.

Yours truly,

Liana