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I think airports are proof that humans were never meant to feel fully certain.

At an airport, there are people who still don’t know that you have to take your laptop out during TSA, water bottles that somehow cost $8, and crowds full of people either departing from home or arriving at it. Nothing is certain there. Will your flight be delayed? Cancelled? Will there be turbulence? Will you forget your luggage on your patio because you got distracted? (Okay, that only happened to me once, maybe twice, but I swear I’ve remembered it ever since...)

Airports are uncertain because they are filled with transitions. They hold the space between the person you were when you packed your bag and the person you’ll be when you land. Who knows what turbulence you could face in between or where your imagination may go?

As children, we imagine everything. A cardboard box becomes a spaceship. Oversized glasses and a tutu transform you into Hannah Montana. When asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the answer is given without hesitation, guided by a dream rather than logic.

Some people may always have a more expansive imagination than others, and that’s part of what makes us individuals, shaped by our own lived experiences. But somewhere along the way, you may have wondered: where did my imagination go?

The truth is, imagination doesn’t disappear on your 18th birthday when you are suddenly titled an “adult.” Rather, it often shifts form. I believe imagination matures into curiosity, especially when we feel safe enough to explore it again.

Imagination can be constrained in adulthood because we feel like we're expected to have answers (sometimes even the "right" ones). Responsibilities, realism, and the awareness of how others may judge our choices becomes more of a day-to-day experience. As a result, certainty can start to feel like something we are supposed to have, even when we don't. After all, who really knows what happens when you check your bag at the airport? I sure don’t!

This is where curiosity becomes important.

Approaching conversations, experiences, and relationships with curiosity allows us to soften the pressure of having immediate answers to questions like, "What do you want to do with your career?" or "Do you ever want to get married?" When we allow multiple possibilities to exist and we explore the logic behind each option, we shift from reactivity into openness. With this, we allow for our window of tolerance to become slightly bigger, creating a space for uncertainty without having it push us over the edge.

Curiosity gives us permission to say, “I don’t know yet, and I don’t need to.”

Everything carries risk to some extent. Changing apartments. Switching jobs. Trying something new. Turbulence. Every decision has the potential to cost you something. But if you never take the risk, if you never stop to ask “what if something good comes from this?”... then you’ll simply never reach your full potential.

Uncertainty is a strange feeling. Some people thrive in it. Some people fear it. For me, it’s both. But I think it’s important to allow yourself the transition. To give yourself permission to exist between who you were and who you want to become. Because without that space, curiosity can’t survive, and neither could imagination.

Perhaps imagination never leaves us at all. Perhaps it simply changes its language as we grow older. It becomes curiosity. It becomes the ability to sit with uncertainty without being overwhelmed by it. It becomes a way of exploring life without needing every answer first.

And maybe that’s the real shift between childhood and adulthood: not the loss of imagination, but the invitation to use it differently. Stay curious. Stay open. Stay present. Because ultimately, staying at the gate feels safer, but growth only happens once you board the plane.

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Photo by Earl Andre Roca