Today is my friend’s birthday. She’s a good friend – we went to highschool together, and now we work together. She’s the kind of friend I’d put in a little extra effort for, posting a collection of flattering, funny and dated photos on my Instagram story to wish her a happy birthday and reminisce over our wonderful friendship.
While trawling through my camera roll and Facebook page in search of said photos, I got sucked in to the deep, dark, black hole of Memory Lane.
You know the one I’m talking about: you find pictures of your recent overseas holiday, then, suddenly you’ve gone all the way back to your 21st birthday. Then you stumble across your high school graduation album, and before you know it you’re gawking at a stash of pictures from your very first digital camera. Yikes.
Those pre-teen snaps and pretty much everything from my highschool days are just downright hilarious. But when I look at some of the pictures from my early 20s, I catch myself feeling…. deflated.
My hair was so blonde! And my face seems thinner. And I look more tanned.. I think I just look healthier in general. I love the way I look in that dress! Why don’t I look like that when I put it on now? When did my arms get so much bigger? When did these forehead lines start to show?
The snaps from my year studying abroad in California nearly make me cry, bringing back memories of how careless, free and adventurous I was. Up for anything, bound by nothing. I mourn this version of me.
But this is not the only past version of me. I have many past selves, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, issues and opportunities.
Flicking back to the photos from just a few years before my study exchange, you can see another of my past selves. This one is even slimmer, with tired eyes and half-hearted smiles. This past self was exhausted from anxiety, trapped in an emotionally abusive relationship and void of the independence and confidence of my past self before that.
Fast forward a year from then, and there’s another version of me. Grown to a healthy weight after 8 months of eating my way through Europe and landing in South Africa. Sun-kissed, all smiles. Working in a hostel and making many, many temporary but joyful friendships.
2019. Yet another past self, one I don’t like to linger on. Working full-time AND studying a Bachelors Degree full-time (if you’re wondering how that works, think very long days and many sleepless nights). Living in a share-house with a drug addict. Stressed, binge-drinking. Depressed.
I used to think that who I am is the same person I have always been, and the same person that I always would be. That all people, at their core, had an identity or personality that was unique and unchanging.
Looking at all my past selves, I now know this not to be true. I reinvent myself again, and again, and again.
So why do I compare my present self with my past selves?
I’m not as fit, youthful, tanned or blonde as I was in California, or South Africa. I’m not as free or as adventurous.
But I’m also not as anxious or depressed as I was a year ago. My present self is oozing the self-confidence, self-worth and self-assuredness that was stripped from me five years ago.
My present self is not as fit or blonde or tanned because she got a job she loves in an industry she’s passionate about, so she doesn’t have as much time to workout or be outside. But she’s financially sound, learning a lot and setting goals for her future self that she’s excited about.
My future selves a year from now, three years from now and five years from now will be different again.
Our present selves are a product of the experiences of all our past selves. So instead of grieving a past self you loved, or pitying one you didn’t, ditch the comparison and reflect on how each of them contributed to who you are today.
Hero image by Serrah Galos on Unsplash
THE ISO DIARIES 