An essay on change, memory, and the quiet tension of reinvention…
What does it mean to become new when you’re shaped by the old?
I saw a comment on TikTok saying, “be patient in becoming someone you’ve never been.” It was under a fitness influencer’s post denouncing the rise of skinnytok. And while they were speaking about body image and biology, it hit a different nerve for me.
I’ve been on a quiet break. Not buzzing with change or overwhelmed with emotion. Just… still. Frustrated, yes—but other than that I’ve been feeling strangely neutral. And maybe for the first time ever, quite numb. I would call this time a “reset.” But a reset to what?
By definition a reset can go one of two ways— it can be a return you to what you were, or it could make you different. And truthfully, I don’t know if I want things to go back to the way they were. That doesn’t mean a complete 360. And it’s not necessarily about external change either. I think I’m in the right direction and everything I’m looking for is already inside me. It just needs to be unravelled. Which is a complicated thing when you have a fear of being fully seen. And even more complex when your fear is your desire.
The memory of who I was
As humans, we each are one being. Unless you believe something otherwise, you only get to live in this one skin. So you appear as one to the world. But inside… it’s crowded. There are multiple versions of myself which reside in my being, and I think memory lives in those versions.
Memory isn’t something I recall—its something I become.
And when certain emotions and experiences (that should be one offs) repeat themselves over and over and over again our brain learns them. Neuroscientists call it emotional memory or procedural memory—reactions stored so deeply they bypass thought. Eventually, repeat moments strengthen memory to a point where it becomes muscle.
It pushes its way through my body, my voice, my choices, my fears. And when I think I’ve left, I’m pulled right back to the girl who stays in the corner to stay safe, or the girl who had to sound right to be heard, or the girl who dresses to hide, or the girl who would rather not exist than not be enough. I get pulled back because my nervous system doesn’t always know the difference between then and now.
“Let it go” is always the advice. “It’s not that deep” is always the plaster on the festering wound. But if trauma is a pattern your body memorises, then healing has to be a pattern too.
So maybe this where the paradox begins: How do you become something new when you’re entire being is shaped by what you had to be? What happens when you don’t want to live from the past, but you can’t forget it either?
Nothing is new
I always say this: on a macro level, I’m not the first to do anything. But on a micro level I am. I’m the first to do it like this—with this history, in this moment, with this body, this voice, this exact mix of memories and fears. Existing comes with infinite combinations. Even if something has been done before, none has done it like me. I usually spend 10 minutes explaining this in a roundabout way (on a good day) but it’s called phenomenology. The idea that experiences are always lived from a unique point of view. SO even in the ordinary, theres something original. That’s why being a pioneer is easy. Because to exist fully is already its own first.
I said this reset isn external, and neither is it about changing directions. I believe that there’s nothing new about by reset. I’m simply undoing and implementing what I already have.
The fear of being seen means you subconsciously start pulling away from what you want. It’s tiny shifts you don’t notice, until one day you wake up on the opposite side. And the opposite becomes familiar. It becomes safe. And what says even longer than the opposite… is the negative.
If people decide who you are before you do—and they say it enough, believe it enough, and treat you like its true—you start to internalise it. It’s called introjection. I think people pin narratives onto you until it pierces your skin and sticks in your flesh. You start wearing shoes you never picked out, but eventually mould to your feet. They feel earned even if they were never your style.
And if the perception is strong enough… if people clap for the version of your they prefer, you start to perform it. Not because you want to but because you think that’s what acceptable or admirable or palatable. Rationally, you’re just in a bad season. Or having a hard day. But when everyone around you decides that your season is your identity, it gets harder to remember who you were before it.
And so the “reset” you thought would start something new actually loops you back around. You realise its not about becoming someone else, its about recovering who you were before perception took over. I think the person I’m trying to become already exists. Not outside—but inside.
The quiet tension
At the beginning of the semester my lecturer said,“the best anthropologist is a 4-year-old.”
He repeated this so many times I’m starting to think I’ll be competing with a toddler in the job market.
He said that it’s because they constantly (and annoyingly) always ask why. They’re curious. And I must’ve not aged in 15 years, because I, too want to know. And I also want to try things without shame. Maybe becoming something I’ve never been isn’t about erasure—but about curiosity.
Curiosity is probably one of my biggest strengths. But it’s also the thing thats killed the cat. And if the cat has 9 lives, I’ve definitely used up a few. But who wants to die? The goal is to stay alive. To keep going. So if I’ve “died” a few times already, it must mean I don’t have all the answers yet. If I did, I wouldn’t need to start over. Which is why curiosity isn’t all about knowing, its about choosing to try.
So maybe thats the quiet tension. The space between who I’ve been and who I could be isn’t made of grand gestures or big reinventions. It’s made of questions. Tilting my head to the side and asking, “what if I tried something different?” Not because I hate who I am now. But because I’m curious about who else I could be.
Curiosity doesn’t demand a new self, It simply asks if there’s more. And the more I ask, the more I realise how much I’ve already had. How much of becoming is actually about returning. With better eyes, softer hands and a steadier breath.
So maybe becoming someone you’ve never been… isn’t quite accurate. Because if the desire is already in you, then maybe you have been there before. Not in full form—but in feeling. In fragments. Becoming is just remembering the parts you’ve silenced, buried, or forgotten.