19
one year as an official "adult" - reflections on a year that has shaped my life
part i: the past
Every year, I am reminded by time and its passing.
This entire year was a constant reminder of “this too shall pass”. 18 felt like I was waiting for the inevitable to happen. To hear back from universities (and February 2025, I was only waiting on LSE to respond), to sit my board exams, graduate from highs school, waiting for my 12th results, and then the big move, the thing that I had anticipated for so long but couldn’t imagine happening — leaving home for the first time, moving to London to start university.
Throughout this year, while waiting for this inevitability, I was in mild denial that it would happen, that the present, which feels so infinite, would lead to a future which was unseeable. The inevitable was unpredictabe.
When I turned 18, I couldn’t imagine myself at 19.
“I will be stepping into the most unpredictable section of my life now — I have no idea what the next year is going to look like, where I will be going to go to university, who I will become. Looking forward from 17 to 18 wasn’t a challenge. Thinking about 19 year old me feels almost impossible to me now.” — 18, Aastha
And now, here I am, studying in the university I considered not applying in because I didn’t think I would get in (LSE).
When I turned 18, I was terrified. I felt this internal paralysis in which everything inside me was screaming for time to just stop. I wasn’t ready to be an adult. I felt oddly burdened by my age.
Moving out to university, I fully realised how young I was, how much of life is still left to be lived, and simply imagining that feels terrifying and yet so exhilirating. There is so much to live for, there is so much to dream for. I have the privilege and burden of living a life.
part ii: the present
This too shall pass. The present is so fragile: the more you think about it , the more it becomes a liminal space, a non-existent, continuous singularity in between the past running into the future.
And yet, it feels all-consuming. What happens in the present often feels like it won’t end, like the experience won’t terminate, even though we know it will.
Are our bodies stagnant as time flows through us or are we running with the past into the future, hungry to consume all the time that there is yet to be experienced?
The joy, sorrow and problems of the present seem like they will never end, but it does.
When I moved to London in September, I did not expect to completely break down on the first day away from home in my new room. Everything and every emotion felt like it was dialled up and intensified a 100 times over. Navigating a new city, an entirely new country, was disorienting to say the least. I never knew, before coming to London, that the weather could control and influence my mood so much.
But at the same time, I’ve grown so much this past year. I have experienced things I’ve never done before. I’ve tried new things out, learnt more about myself and who I am, and learnt to adapt. I never done my laundry before.1 I didn’t know how to vacuum. I sometimes neglected my dishes to the point they got moldy, so I learnt how to clean that. I learnt how to manage myself and my life — and it’s something I continue to learn. I experienced nightlife for the first time, went out with friends to see plays, watched movies in one of the best cinemas in the world2 — I lived life like I’ve not done before in many ways.
Life at university is a rollercoaster ride. It feels like highschool in someways, but dosed with steriods of unprecedented freedom that makes everything wilder and more intense, in both the good and the bad.
And this too shall pass. The present I’m living in right now, the life I have at the moment, is only temporary. In less than a year from now, I’ll be living somewhere different from where I am right now. In a few years, I will have finished university. Especially as a first year, I feel protected from the “real” adult world, the adult world of jobs and taxes and employement. This all will pass as well.
The inevitable will surely come: I’m trying to fear it’s unpredictability less.
part iii: the future, the future, the future
Time is immaterial: it will pass through us, or perhaps we will pass through it, but regardless, it will pass.
Is the future already determined? Or are we just making all the decisions we were going to do anyway? Or do we have any control over our futures at all? I don’t know, but I’d like to think that we do.
I feel that February for me is the time where I feel mentally and physically prepared to work on goals for the year, also because my birthday and these posts help me to keep a log of yearly time.
So here are some of my goals for 2026:
Write more: Last year, I hardly posted anything here. I did write, but a lot of it is scattered across different platforms, half-fleshed out essays marinating in my drafts. This year, I aim to write and post more. Every other Friday, I will be posting something on my substack. I’ve realised that my fear of imperfection and rejection has held me down for very long. I want to embrace it. I may write long essays here, maybe I’ll post shorter bits of writing. But I committing to post something at least once every 2 weeks on here, no matter what.
Reach out more: This year, I want to embrace rejection more. I came across a reel by Gabriella Carr in which she talks about how she wants to get rejected 1000 times. She started this project because she wanted to do things that seemed out of her reach, and is see if those “nos” could be a “yes”. In a similar manner, I want to put myself more out there, to do things that are out of my comfort zone and reach for things that feel out of my reach at the moment. When I was in 10th grade, I sent out my work to a lot of literally magazines and got rejected innumerable times. That rejection impacted me a lot mentally. I want to build a resilience to rejection this year. So my goal is to do three things that are out of my comfort zone each week and log it.
Read more books, watch more movies: I want to stop spending more time on Instagram and replace it with more intentional consumption of content. I realised how much I love watching beautiful, slow-paced and emotionally deep movies. I’ve been very drawn to East Asian films because their brilliant cinematography. I want to expand my horizons. Reading and books have always given me so much joy and I hope to maintain a good reading habit this year.
Health and discipline: Since coming to university, eating well is something I’ve been struggling with. Since December, I’ve started weight training. My goal this year is to eat more mindfully and more intentionally, and to take more care of it.
For the first time in life, I don’t dread time passing as much I used to. I still sometimes do, but not with the crippling anxiety that consumed me back in high school. Back in high school, I felt like I was constantly running against the clock, that I wasn’t doing enough for my future, especially for college (that is a whole other story). I still do feel that sometimes, but now I look forward to the months passing. I look forward to the future.
This is my first birthday away from home and it feels strange. My college friends through a lovely midnight birthday surprise for me, which really warmed my heart.
Turning 19 feels weird. I know I’m young, but its officially my last year as a teen. (I don’t even know if 19 counts as being a teen. When I was younger, 19 in my head was not a teenager.) Next year, I will be entering my twenties, into a decade of my life that everyone seems to have some advice about.
But that discussion… is for next year.
Until then, here’s to a beautiful future — and a beautiful present.
DEAR READERS,
Thank you so much for reading! Hope you have been doing well.
Thank you so much to my lovely friends at LSE for throwing such a lovely surprise today in the morning. I appreciate all so much. To my highschool friends, I love you all so much and miss you every day.
I also need to thank my mama and mami (uncle and aunt) here in London — thank you to all the Europe Kedias who have made this new city feel like a home away from home.
Mom, Papa and Atharv — I love you three so much. The hardest part about moving away to London was not being able to be around you all anymore. I miss you all so much.
The second time I did my laundry, I accidentally poured half of the detergent. When I realised what I had done, I tried to scoop some out, but it wasn’t possible. I ended up having to respin the laundry more than once so that the clothes would stop being so sticky. #firstyearstruggles
I went to see “Frankenstein” which is out on Netflix at BFI Imax through the LSE literary society. BFI is my one-night stand that I had in the second month of college that I can’t get over. What a wonderful experience it was watching that move in that cinema.
happiest of birthdays aastha 🫶🏼🫶🏼
Glad to know that you started higher education in LSE.
Great narration of the emotions!
Wishing you all the best and God bless you.