I first saw the movie adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower when I was in middle school, and at the time, I didn't quite understand it. I was too young to understand why the characters behaved the way they did and felt the things they felt. It all felt so abnormal to me because I had never experienced any of it.
When I finally read the book in high school, however, it made sense to me. Every line of the book touched me on a deep, meaningful level despite still not understanding all of it.
As I've gotten older, more and more of the meanings and messages of the novel have sunk in, and I've come to understand that The Perks of Being a Wallflower is the first book I've read that truly expresses how it feels to grow up. While every word demonstrates this, these five quotes, I believe, show that the book is the best expression of young adulthood and the struggles of growing up.
1. "So this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."
Being too old to be a kid but too young to be an adult is a weird and confusing time, and it's full of emotions that work together despite being the complete opposite of one another. Trying to figure out how to feel and how to cope with these emotions characterizes this stage of life.
2. "Things changes. And friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody."
Young adulthood is also a time of tons of changes. People change as we learn more about ourselves and become the people we want to be. Sometimes, this ends relationships we thought would last forever. Going away to college only intensifies these changes, but life keeps going.
3. "There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a store stomach for the right reasons."
It's not all teenage angst. We've all had those nights where we're surrounded by the people we love the most and are having the time of our lives. Some of the best moments we have are when we're with these people and laughing until our stomachs hurt over anything, everything, and nothing at once.
4. "So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them."
More than anything, I think being a young adult is about figuring out who we are. We start to understand ourselves for who we are, who we aren't, and who we want to be. We may not understand what makes us who we are, but we learn to love that person and accept ourselves for who we are. We may not be perfect, but there would be no fun that.
5. "I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We'll all be somebody's mom or dad. But right now these moments are not stories. This is happening."
Growing up is also the foundation of the stories of the good ol' days that we all hear from our parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents. We're creating the memories and stories that we will tell forever and that we will never forget. We're having the time of our lives, and we just need to remember to live in the moment and experience it all while it's happening.
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