The Vignettes of Adulthood
For a long time, I approached adulthood like Sylvia Plath’s fig tree. In The Bell Jar, she describes a tree filled with figs, each one representing a different future. One fig is a successful career. Another is love. Another is adventure. Another is creativity. The tragedy is that while the narrator sits beneath the tree trying to choose the perfect fig, they all begin to wither and fall.
I think many of us spend our twenties sitting beneath that same fig tree.
The older I get, the more I realise that adulthood is not about picking the perfect fig. It arrives quietly, through moments so ordinary that we often forget to notice them. For me, adulthood has looked like moving to a different city and allowing it to change me. It has looked like finding comfort in unfamiliar streets, building routines from scratch, and slowly collecting memories in places that once felt foreign. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of adulthood as something to figure out and started seeing it as something to experience. A collection of people, places, films, books, conversations, heartbreaks, adventures, and fleeting moments that somehow become part of who we are.
Becoming a Mosaic of Everything You Love
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As children, we often imagine that adulthood is about finding ourselves. We picture a future version of us who is confident, successful, and completely certain of who they are. The older I get, the less I think that’s true. If anything, I think we become a mosaic of everything we love. A favourite film changes the way we see the world. A city leaves its imprint on us. A book stays with us long after we’ve finished reading it. A random conversation in a café that stayed in my head for weeks.
We take inspiration from strangers we pass on the street, from people we admire, from places we visit, and from experiences we never expected to have. Even fashion begins to feel different. We stop dressing for trends and start dressing up to feel more alive. We buy pieces that reflect the person we are becoming rather than the person we already are. And that’s the strange thing about growing up. We spend so much time trying to find ourselves, only to realise that we’ve been creating ourselves all along.
The Art of Becoming and Unbecoming
What nobody tells you about growing up is that it is not only about finding yourself. It is also about losing parts of yourself.
There is a quiet grief that comes with adulthood. You outgrow friendships, places, dreams, and even versions of yourself that once felt permanent. For a long time, I thought growth meant becoming more. Now I realise it also means letting go. Letting go of expectations that no longer fit. Letting go of identities you have carried for years. Letting go of the idea that you must have everything figured out. Yet there is something beautiful about this process. Every version of yourself that you leave behind creates space for a new one to emerge. Perhaps that is why adulthood feels so mysterious. We are constantly becoming and unbecoming at the same time, learning who we are while also learning who we are not.
Collecting Moments Instead of Milestones
Some of the most meaningful parts of adulthood would never appear on a résumé. They are the evenings spent laughing with friends until your stomach hurts. The spontaneous plans that become your favourite memories. The blurry photographs captured on a digital camera. The feeling of running along a beach at sunset, staying out later than planned because the conversation is too good to leave, or discovering a café that slowly becomes part of your routine.
These moments seem insignificant while they are happening, yet years later they become the memories we treasure most. The older I get, the more I believe that a beautiful life is built from experiences rather than accomplishments. It is built from collecting stories, not trophies. From being present enough to notice the small moments while they are still unfolding.
More Time Trying Than Dreaming
Perhaps the greatest lesson adulthood has taught me is that life is meant to be lived, not simply imagined. When I look back, I am grateful that I have spent more time trying than dreaming. More time booking the ticket than wondering what would happen if I went. More time moving to the city than imagining what life there would be like. More time taking risks than waiting for certainty.
One of the most beautiful things about adulthood is that everybody’s story looks different. We are all navigating uncertainty in our own way, yet somehow our experiences remain deeply relatable. We are all directors of our own lives, creating stories that no one else could replicate. Maybe we will not become everything we once imagined. Maybe that was never the point. The point is that we participated. We tried. We lived. Because why spend your life chasing a checklist when you could be busy creating a story worth remembering?