Who We Are (and Who We Aren’t)
As you know I’m always thinking about a lot of stuff so once again I have been thinking a lot about who we are. Not in a philosophical or inspirational way. In a tired way.
About who we are beneath all the names, roles, projections, and expectations that collect around us over time. The versions of us that others see. The versions they need us to be. The versions we slowly learn to perform just to survive. versions of yourself that were never entirely yours. At some point, without noticing, we become a collage of other people’s ideas. Labels. Roles. Projections. Some of them sound flattering. Some of them hurt. Most of them are limiting. And the longer you wear them, the harder it becomes to tell where they end and you begin. And the strange thing is how rarely we stop to ask: Is any of this actually me?
This year, I’ve been trying to undo some of that. To decondition myself. To peel back layers instead of adding new ones. In the past it felt like I was constantly performing versions of myself that once made sense but no longer felt true. Versions that were built for survival, approval, productivity, love. Versions that kept me safe, but also far away from myself. I started asking myself when I felt the most real. I looked for moments where I wasn’t trying to be anything. Sometimes I looked for memories of fragments of time that matter more than we think. They’re like fingerprints of the self. Proof that we existed in a wild form before the conditioning. Before we learned how to shrink or harden or impress.
I don’t think identity is something we find once and keep forever. I think it’s something we return to again and again. A remembering. A reclaiming. Sometimes a refusal. Sometimes reinventing. In any case it might be good to unlearn enough to recognize who was there all along.
I’m still in that process. Some days I don’t recognize myself at all. Other days I feel closer than ever. Both are terrifying in different ways. But even that feels more honest than living entirely through other people’s definitions of me. I don’t want to keep performing identities that make me palatable, productive, or easy to categorize. And letting those layers fall apart isn’t empowering or glamorous as it may sound. It’s destabilizing. It feels like losing structure. Like disappointing people. Like standing without armor.
Maybe knowing who we are isn’t about clarity. Maybe it’s about the courage to look inward, to disappoint expectations, to let old identities fall apart, and to choose ourselves in new ways.
I don’t know exactly who I am yet. But I’m learning to listen for her in my memories, in my body, in the moments where I feel undone instead of impressive.
