Sometimes I used to think randomly about how life has changed so much over the past 6 to 7 years. Sometimes I used to miss my old self, a version of me that had disappeared like it never existed. Literally, I used to think sometimes that it wasn’t me, how much life had changed. I was never like that before. I was totally different, but not the one from childhood photos or high school yearbooks, someone more recent than that. Missing my old self hits differently than nostalgia. It’s not that I was happier then. I was just… different in a way you can’t get back.
Isn’t this a strange kind of grief? Self awareness means recognizing the gap between who you were and who you’ve become, but no one tells you how awareness can hurt in its own quiet way.
You Miss the Person Who Didn’t Know Yet
Sometimes you don’t miss the other person while sitting alone, you miss your own old self, like how you used to be, how you do actions without being worried about their reactions. This is a quiet moment of identity reflection, when I look back at who I was before life became complicated. That old version of me believed in simple things. How it believes and trusts people easily. How it believes that everything will come out perfect, how it believes that everyone was sincere with it, how I used to think that friendships are meant to be forever… isn’t strange? How hope came easily to me, and trust feels natural. How I used to get excited over things, laugh openly, say whatever I wanted to say openly without the fear of being judged… how easy, simple, and beautiful life was before when we didn’t overthink about life and about how people think about me, my actions, my words, my appearance.
But somewhere along the way, things changed. I used to start thinking about how people feel about me… Am I doing it right? Am I looking good? Am I compatible for this? Will they judge me and make fun of me if I say something wrong?
This thought silently kills me from inside. My voice was lost somewhere inside me because of these thoughts and the fear of being judged.
It’s Not Regret. It’s Something Else.
I wouldn’t go back. That’s the complicated part. I’d probably make the same choices again, take the same paths, learn the same hard truths. Personal change wasn’t optional, it was survival.
But on the other side, it doesnt means that I don’t miss what I lost because of those choices. And also, it doesn’t mean that the loss doesn’t hurt.
Sometimes I wish to live 5 minutes in that time again, not because I want to live that life again, but just to remember what it felt like before I knew better, before I used to care about what people think about me, and before the fear of being judged. Before I learned to protect myself. Before I carried proof of all the ways things can fall apart.
Sometimes emotional growth feels less like becoming and more like losing pieces I didn’t know I would need later. The piece that could still be surprising. The piece that didn’t see betrayal coming. The piece that thought love was simpler than this.
The You That Other People Remember
When someone mentions my name and use to explain me in a way that makes me realize they’re talking about someone who doesn’t exist anymore. They’re remembering a version I’ve already buried.
And you know the strange part? Only I know what has happened with me, and people simply just say “Oh, you changed alot…” The world sees the before and after, but I am the only one who felt the shift happening in real-time. I am the only witness to my own disappearance.
Life transitions don’t always announce themselves. Sometimes you just wake up one day and realize you’ve been someone else for years now, and nobody noticed the funeral.
What You’re Actually Missing
Maybe it’s not even them I miss. Maybe I miss the world I lived in back then. A world where people meant what they said, where disappointment felt shocking and not normal, where I could give second chances without feeling foolish and being judged. I miss the version of me who could still be surprised, who had not yet learned that some patterns repeat and some people do not change. I didn’t know then that some hope only turns into delayed heartbreak.
I miss not knowing how things would end. I miss not carrying proof in my head or keeping a mental list of reasons to be careful. When I miss my old self, what I am really missing is the freedom of not knowing yet, the lightness of still believing. I miss being able to walk into a room without first checking for ways out.
Maybe missing my old self does not mean I want to go back. Maybe it just means I was truly there fully, honestly, imperfectly in a way that mattered enough to leave something behind. I cannot keep every version of myself, but I do not have to forget them either.
