2025: Suddenly an Adult, but Not Ready for It.

When did it actually happen – this whole “growing up” thing?

2025, and it feels both like yesterday and like a century ago that I was sitting in my childhood bedroom, the latest Bravo magazine in hand, staring at the headline: “Selena Gomez & Justin Bieber – Teen Dream Couple Breaks Up.”

How can a whole decade have passed, my Bravo collection long buried in the depths of my childhood, and yet I still feel like I’m in the same spot —while at the same time, like a completely different person?

When my grandma told me time flies and I should enjoy my youth, I didn’t think much of it. How could I have known she’d be right, and now here I am, my teenage years behind me, wondering how it all went by so fast.

2015? Was it just yesterday or a hundred years ago?

Somehow, time has taken the wheel, and now I’m sitting here asking myself:

What have I even been doing all these years?

Suddenly, it’s 2025, and I’ve never felt so much FOMO as I do at the start of this year. That nagging fear of missing out has never been so loud.

Why does everything feel so serious now?

And how did that happen so suddenly?

It’s like I press “play” on life every single day but don’t really feel like I’m living it. And “stop”? How do I hit that weird “stop” button without spiraling into a week of unproductive lounging in bed, glorifying it as “me time”?

Sometimes I wonder if procrastination is just my way of reaching for those moments when life felt less complicated.

Back then, we all thought our problems—the most serious ones ever—were the biggest hurdles we’d ever face.

All these questions that ruled our lives back then seem so small now, like street musicians in the subway at 8 a.m. They’re there, sure, but no one really pays them any attention. And if they do, they forget about them after 15 minutes.

Now, everything’s more complicated.

Complex questions everywhere, everyone has questions, but answers?

None.

Whether it’s my manager or the guys on Hinge, we spend years preparing for life—yet we have no idea what we actually want. Or if we even know who we really are.

The “growing up” button has been pressed, and suddenly everything is supposed to be clearer, more serious, more tangible. But is it?

It feels like life exists in two versions of me: the one I see in my head—the one who knows what she wants, who has her dreams crystal clear—and the other version, the one who lives day by day, sometimes feeling stuck in a constant state of “survival mode”—no plan, no big goals, and not really myself.

A guide to life or a new Reel “How to Live Your 20s”—that’s what I need right now.

But would it help?

Spoiler: NO.

Maybe it’s always been this way.

Maybe it’s not so bad to constantly reinvent yourself.

Maybe it’s this the unclearness that makes life exciting.

The “perfect plan” or the moment when everything finally makes sense—it doesn’t exist.

And maybe it’s not supposed to.

Somewhere in the chaos of our twenties, we might find exactly what keeps redefining us.

And who knows how many times that will change this year.

By Noémi Zak