[Puberty is definitely an apt metaphor.]

Bardic magic is one of a bunch of different talents or Gifts that people have, in my world. Some are standard psychic talents--clairvoyance, psychic empathy. Healing. Most of them start to develop in the teenage years. Which is traumatic as fuck if you don't have anyone around who recognizes what's going on and can coach you through it.

I was sixteen when things started getting weird. I didn't actually start learning from another Bard until I was twenty-two.