I’ve spent most of my life waiting for it to feel like a movie.
High School Musical, Mean Girls, and Legally Blonde—these weren’t just movies to me, they were blueprints. They painted teenagehood and young adulthood as cinematic—a perfect mix of adventure, transformation, and serendipity. The thrilling promposal, the life-changing internship straight out of undergrad, the core group that stays together through thick and thin—these were the storylines I absorbed, and without realizing it, spent years trying to fit my life into.
I was fed a vision of the “perfect years,” a life that felt like one long, continuous “perfect day,” starting with high school, then university, then the ever-elusive prime of adulthood. I thought these years, between 15 and 25, would be my golden age—nothing before or after would ever measure up.
Through movies and social media, I was handed a roap with clear checkpoints: by the end of high school, I’d have my forever friends; by university, I’d stumble into the love of my life; and by graduation, I’d step seamlessly into success. Every stage was supposed to come with its own effortlessly magical defining moment—just like ones I’d seen in an it-girl’s carefully curated Instagram dump or a feel-good movie montage I’d fallen asleep to more times than I’d like to it.
For me, it was never just about living in these exciting moments, it was about them happening at the right time, in the right way, with perfect lighting, surrounded by perfect people. I thought life would be like Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure—glamorous, uncomplicated, filled with dazzling moments that simply fell into place.
But then reality hit me, hard. I sitting at home in high school, scrolling through Snapchat stories of yet another themed party I hadn’t heard about, watching everyone live out the teenage experience I thought was going to be mine. I spent my birthdays with my two best friends—one of them being a relationship I was born into having, my sister—and my family—cozy, familiar, and full of love. But at the time, it felt as if I was missing something bigger, something everyone else had figured out.
By the time I got to university, I thought the script would finally fall into place. But when my 20th birthday came around, I found myself alone in my room, with a fever, and no real plans to cancel because of this sickness as they’d already fallen through. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I had imagined something straight out of a perfect day montage: laughter, music, friends surprising me with something over-the-top. Instead, I stared at my laptop screen, watching my classic comfort rom-com, wondering where I’d gone wrong.
But real life isn’t a coming-of-age montage set to upbeat music ¾ cue The Breakfast Club’s “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”.
Instead, I’ve spent my “perfect years” microwaving leftovers at one a.m., drowning in assignments, and realizing that real life was a little messier than the movies had promised; the sooner I accepted that, the lighter I would feel.
There’s no script, no defining moment where everything clicks into place. Instead, there are uncertainties, disappointments, and quiet joys that don’t always feel worthy of a highlight reel.
In fact, real life often falls off script: forever friends fade out of your life, sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once; the love you thought would last forever breaks your heart and it hurts in a way no movie could’ve prepared you for; the job, the opportunity, the dream that was supposed to be waiting for you doesn’t come as easily as it was promised.
And the happiest moments I’ve had weren’t even the ones I spent years anticipating. They were the simple ones: coming home after a long day, making Gigi Hadid’s vodka pasta recipe, or watching a movie. A spontaneous coffee date with a friend who genuinely cared, laughing at something so stupid I couldn’t breathe—these weren’t the milestones I had expected to define my life, yet they were the ones that made it feel real.
The hidden weight behind this concept of “prime years” is that it plants the notion of a peak—one shining moment in time where everything is meant to align, leaving every other stage feeling like a lesser version of what once was. It’s a dangerous mindset, one that’s tricked me into believing that if I’m not experiencing euphoria at every turn, I’m somehow doing life wrong.
Because, the truth is, the perfect years don’t exist—at least, not in the way High School Musical promised.
But that doesn’t mean life isn’t worth cherishing, it just looks different than I expected. The best times aren’t a single, defined era but a series of fleeting moments scattered across a lifetime.
If my young life has taught me anything thus far, it’s this: life isn’t meant to follow a script—it’s meant to be lived. Maybe happiness isn’t found in grand milestones or curated experiences. Perhaps it’s in the quiet nights spent laughing with friends, the thrill of achieving something you never thought you could, the messy, imperfect days that make you feel alive in ways you can’t fully articulate. These moments rarely feel extraordinary at the time. Instead, they slip by unnoticed, only to resurface later as memories I wish I’d held onto a little tighter.
So, I’m letting go of the need for every moment to feel movie-worthy. Not entirely—old habits die hard—but I’m letting go enough to start appreciating the present without constantly chasing an idealized future.
Now, looking back, I wouldn’t trade the life I have for the one I had so vividly imagined.
Maybe, just maybe, the perfect years are the ones we stop trying so hard to perfect.
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