THE EARLY SYMPTOMS OF BECOMING A PERSON WITH TASTE

"Petite Bloom 1" by Lynne McDonald, all rights reserved.

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Something 2025 brought me — or maybe it was just turning the riveting age of 23 — was the development of personal taste. Not a fully fleshed-out identity, not a “this is my signature scent, cocktail, philosophy, and five-year plan” kind of thing. More like the early symptoms of having opinions.

Taste, I’m learning, doesn’t arrive with fanfare. It reveals itself as boundaries first, like gentle refusals, tiny shifts in what you tolerate, the quiet “not this” your body knows before you do.

One of the first signs I was developing personal taste wasn’t discovering what I love, it was identifying what I no longer have the energy to pretend I enjoy. For me, that started with Instagram, not the platform itself, but what it did to me. I was using it as a scoreboard for how “well” my life was going compared to everyone else’s. So, I deleted it, not as some temporary wellness gesture, but as an actual act of taste. Because if taste is knowing what feels like you, then getting off Instagram was my first real boundary — choosing clarity over comparison felt like choosing myself. (No one hold me to it if I experience a sudden lapse in judgment and post again.)

Another thing my taste has made painfully clear is socializing past 10 p.m. Give me one great espresso martini and then I’m going home, because a 9 p.m. bedtime with a book waiting for me is a luxury I refuse to feel guilty about. I’ve embraced my inner grandmother, preferring to be horizontal in my bed rather than shouting over bar music. If I’m yelling “WHAT?” every sixty seconds, that’s a sign from the universe that I should be in bed. Even if friends or family try to shame me for the early exit, it still feels incredible every single time. And somewhere in all of this, I developed a healthy dislike for strangers’ opinions too, because truly, my choices don’t need to make sense to anyone but me.

Saying no to what wasn’t me made it strangely easier to see what was.

And while I learned what pulls me away from myself, I also discovered what draws me back.

Like cheesy romance novels, even though I probably “should” be reading literary fiction, and rotating the same three shows even though I’ve already had my character arc and epiphany from them, because there’s always a new perspective in a story you love. Same goes for my favorite books. I found comfort in baking the same cinnamon banana coffee cake on repeat (I discovered the recipe and perfected it in the same year, and it has a 100% approval rating, so why change it?). And in my beloved eight hours of sleep, followed by the same yogurt bowl I’ve curated to perfection. I’m nothing if not loyal to my rituals. The same park loop, the same strangers, the same nod of “good for us.” Even the seasonal crafts with friends, destined for a drawer or hung months past their moment, became a reminder that doing something with my hands makes me feel present, not performative.

I discovered a few preferences last year, and taste, I’ve learned, is really just a soft form of boundaries. And if I have a “brand” emerging at 23, it’s simply a woman who loves routine, comfort, clarity, and sleep. Not the sexiest aesthetic, but certainly a stable one.

No, this wasn’t the year I became a fully formed adult, but it was the year I stopped pretending because pretending is exhausting. It was the year I felt myself settling into who I am — more comfortable with my tastes, clearer about what fits, and paying closer attention to my instincts.