"You are who you are now, not in the future."

Says my best friend.

I said to my best friend earlier today, “I feel like I don’t know who I am, and because of that, it’s hard to know what I want. I feel like as I figure out who I am, what I want is going to change.”

She said, “Well I don’t think anyone 100% knows who they are. We are fluid creatures that are constantly growing and evolving. You can only live in the present. You are who you are now. Not in the future.”

I feel like I’m in the middle right? I talked about this in one of my first posts I don’t know what I want, which you can check out here if you like.

I don't know what I want

It’s this sticky middle phase where I feel like I’m not the person I’ve been, or rather I know that the person I have been isn’t going to get me where I want to go. I’m also not quite the person I want to be, or know I’m capable of being.

I’ve grown, evolved, and shed so many layers over the last few years. Yet I can feel some of those societal & familial pressures plus (mostly) bullshit stories I have created for myself over my life.

The middle. The middle. The middle.

The middle is mostly life, right? There are endings. There are beginnings of new middles. But if it’s the actual END, it’s kind of over. 😂

If that’s true, then what best friend has to say stands.

I know that I’m in the process of letting go of the girl that got me here today. I’m so grateful for her, or at least I try to be. She’s picked me off the dark floor time and time again. I would not be here without her.

Yet, I know that while that version of me will always be with me, she’s not the version that’s going to get me to the next phase of life.

She’s had her wins and her losses, and now it’s time to coast, magnificent girl.

But who am I now?

There are things I know.

Sunflowers light me up like the sunshine they are. I find comfort in the things that work but don’t make sense. I’m a sucker for anything that makes me giggle and feel like a kid. I’m happiest outside. I have an inner circle of the best people I could ask for. I love love love connecting with people and having real-life conversations. I thrive off of adventure, whether a late-night run to the store laughing with my best friends, a plane ride across the country, or all the little things in between.

There’s a lot I don’t know.

What if it’s not that I don’t know though?

What if it’s that I forgot?

I forgot to ask myself. I let all these stories, pressure, and life happenings cloud over the top of everything. Some days it feels so hazy that I can’t see through it.

What if I let the clouds dissipate?

What if I start asking more questions?

Maybe, it’s not that I don’t know who I am.

Maybe, it's remembering. It's getting curious about what happens when I let the rest go. Layer by layer. Choice by choice.

Until I'm left with me. Because that's all we are ever really left with anyway, right?

You are who you are now

What she said really brings me back to now. Or reminds me to come back here.

We may not have uncovered or learned everything we can yet. We may change and evolve or grow. We have too. We may and hopefully remember who we are after all the bullshit. But we are who we are right now.

That's what we get to celebrate, right? Who we get to accept and love and see for every piece.

That past doesn't really matter anymore and the future doesn't exist yet either.

We are who we are right now.