Where Does This Part of Me Fit Now?

At some point after realizing you miss parts of yourself, there is a very real temptation to go looking for them exactly where you left them.

You used to be spontaneous?

Cool. Be spontaneous again.

You used to be creative?

Great. Find a hobby.

You used to have more fun?

Well, clearly we need more fun.

Easy enough.

Except somewhere between I miss that part of me and trying to figure out how to get her back, you can accidentally turn your current life into an audition for your twenty-five-year-old self.

And I don’t think that’s what we’re trying to do here.

Let’s say the thing you miss is how adventurous you used to be.

There may have been a time when adventure meant booking a trip without much of a plan, staying out way too late, moving somewhere you barely knew anyone or saying yes before you had enough time to come up with seventeen reasons why something might be a bad idea.

That worked then.

Now there are calendars. And kids. And jobs. And people who apparently expect you to tell them where you’re going all the time.

I know. Eeew.

So what happens if somewhere in your head, adventurous still means doing the kinds of things you did back then?

Well... now we have a problem.

Because you probably don’t want that whole life back.

You may not even want the last-minute road trip.

Depends on the road trip, obviously.

But there was something about that version of you that felt free. Open. Willing to see what happened next.

And that's what we've been figuring out these last few weeks. You can miss something about yourself without wanting the old life back. And after years of adjusting, anticipating and taking care of what everyone else needs, some of those parts of you may have gotten a little quieter.

So now you can name something you miss.

But what does it look like here?

In this life.

Because I wonder if we attach certain parts of ourselves to the season where we remember them best and forget to carry those parts with us.

You were creative when you had entire afternoons to paint or write or make things, so of course when you think about creativity, that’s the picture that comes to mind.

You were ambitious when you were building a career, chasing the next opportunity, working ridiculous hours for something you wanted badly enough to convince yourself sleep was optional.

You were playful when your life had more open space in it.

Adventurous before everybody needed your itinerary.

Social before coordinating dinner with four adults required six text messages and a shared calendar.

But what if you've been looking for the wrong version of it?

Maybe that part of you has changed along with everything else. Maybe it doesn't look the way you remember.

And maybe that's why you haven't recognized it.

Because when I really think about it, I don’t necessarily miss every circumstance attached to those times in my life.

Take spontaneity.

Do you actually miss leaving town on two hours’ notice?

I mean, maybe you do.

I don’t.

That kind of spontaneity is hard for me to muster up. Even on a hot summer day when the kids are out of school and absolutely nothing is planned.

Because, I mean, eeew. Then I’d have to put on makeup and a bra and if I don’t already have this in my plans for the day...

Whoa.

Anyway.

I just wonder if what you really miss is the feeling that the entire day wasn’t already decided for you before your feet hit the floor.

That’s different, don’t you think?

The same thing happens with ambition.

You may have absolutely no desire to go back to the job you had or chase the title you once cared about.

But you do miss the excitement tied to something you were building.

You miss wanting something enough to think about it in the shower. Or planning ideas out in your head as you fall asleep.

You miss that little buzz of I wonder what I could do with this.

It kept you on your toes.

Or maybe you remember being out with friends until midnight and now you’re thinking, God, I used to be so much fun.

You probably were.

Just saying.

But did you love how exhausted and possibly hung over you felt the next morning?

Probably not.

Did you love laughing so hard your stomach hurt?

Of course you did.

Laughter is the best medicine.

You probably also loved talking for hours about things that had absolutely nothing to do with school schedules, somebody’s work problem or what needed to happen by 8:00 the next morning.

But is that really impossible to recreate now?

I don’t think so.

And that's where I think we sometimes get confused.

We remember what fun or ambition or adventure used to look like, and that's what we go looking for.

But what if you're still experiencing some of those things? They just don't look quite the way you remember.

And what if the parts that really have gone quiet don't need their old circumstances back to have a place in your life now?

Adventure doesn’t have to look exactly the way it did when you were younger.

Shoot. We know more now. We care about different things. There are responsibilities in our lives that we genuinely want to be there.

And there are also plenty of things we’d probably turn to our younger selves and say, “Absolutely not. We know better than that.”

So if I want more adventure now, it has to belong to the woman I am now.

Same with creativity.

Same with ambition.

Same with fun.

It’s going to look different. Feel different.

I mean, it kind of has to, right?

But different doesn’t mean gone.

I think that’s the part we miss sometimes. We’re looking for the old version of something, and when we don’t see it, we assume that part of us disappeared.

Your ambition might not be aimed at climbing anymore. But maybe you want to build something that didn’t even exist in your imagination ten years ago.

Let’s be real. Adventure may be way better now and involve considerably better hotel reservations than it did at twenty-five.

Your friendships can look completely different and still make you feel more like yourself when you’re in them.

And playfulness doesn’t expire because you also own a vacuum cleaner and know the pediatrician’s phone number by heart.

I think this is one of the places where the idea of “finding yourself again” can trip us up.

We're so busy remembering how we used to be that we forget to look at who we've become.

And there are things about who I've become that I wouldn't trade. The perspective. The lessons. A faith I've actually had to lean on when life wasn't cooperating.

I want to keep those things.

But I also don’t want maturity to become code for serious all the time.

Or responsibility to mean there’s no room left for curiosity.

And I definitely don’t want “adulting” to become an excuse for why every interesting part of me got shoved in a closet somewhere.

That seems unnecessary.

What I want is for the parts that still feel like me to be able to grow up with me.

I think playfulness can grow up too.

So can ambition. Adventure. Confidence. Creativity.

They may look completely different depending on the season you’re in, but they don’t have to disappear just because your life changed.

And thank goodness.

My kids would never learn how to sing at the top of their lungs, have food fights with icing or occasionally stop taking everything so freaking seriously if that part of me had stayed back in some earlier version of my life.

And actually... I think that’s kind of the point.

That part of me didn’t stay back there.

My kids know her too.

She just looks different now.

She has a mortgage and a calendar and has to clean up the icing after the food fight, which feels deeply unfair, but she’s still here.

And I wonder how many other parts of us are like that.

We’re so busy looking for the exact woman we remember that we don’t always recognize ourselves when those same qualities show up differently.

Maybe you’re more adventurous than you think. It just isn’t the backpack-through-Europe version anymore.

Although, Europe is still on my bucket list, so maybe for me it was backpacking through caves in San Antonio... but you get the picture.

Maybe your ambition didn’t disappear. It changed direction.

Maybe you didn’t stop being creative. You just haven’t been calling what you create now creativity.

Or maybe some of those parts really have been quiet for a long time.

Then what would it look like to let them have a little more room in the life you already have?

Because you don’t tear down everything you built because you lost touch with yourself inside it.

You also don’t need to recreate the circumstances where you last remember feeling most like yourself.

There’s a whole life here already.

People you love. Things you’ve learned. Responsibilities you chose. Responsibilities you definitely did not choose but, well, here we are.

And there’s a woman inside all of that who has changed too.

I think that's where these last few weeks have brought us.

You can miss who you used to be without wanting your old life back.

You can spend years getting really good at noticing what everybody else needs and find yourself a little out of practice at noticing you.

And the parts of yourself you miss? Some may already be showing up differently than you remember. Others may need a little room to grow.

Either way, they don't have to stay in the past.

So I don’t think the question is, How do I get the old me back?

I think it’s closer to:

What does this part of me look like now?

What does fun look like now?

What does ambition look like now?

What does being adventurous or creative or curious look like in this actual life you’re living?

Just because the answer may not look anything like it used to doesn’t make it any less you.

And I think this is one of the ways we can start feeling less lost.

Notice yourself. Recognize that laugh. That excitement. That curiosity.

That little part of you that suddenly wakes up and thinks, Ohhh. I remember this.

And instead of immediately wishing you could go back to wherever you last remember feeling it, try letting it belong here.

In this life.

At this age.

With everything you know now and everything that has happened in between.

You don’t need your old life back to feel like yourself again.

You just need the parts of you that still feel like you to have somewhere to live now.

🎧 Listen to Ep. 73: Stop Waiting for It to Feel Like It Used To →