To be who you are not, but to be haunted by your past, is a phenomenon experienced by many. Be it with your cringe phase, or your emo phase, or just a version of you that you have succeeded. Because that version of you couldn’t. She wasn’t as motivated or hard-working and didn’t push her boundaries to excel. She didn’t want to excel. She wanted to be stuck in a loop of being average and getting praise for her near zero efforts. She held you down. She made you trapped. For you didn’t know better. How could you? She had created the perfect environment for safety and security, with kin of people who had accepted her mediocrity and even celebrated it. Because people like being better than you- they kept that version of you around. Forever to cheer, never to be cheered for.

But you found the shackles that bound you to her and slowly, started breaking away from the ball and chain that held you captive to her. You pushed your boundaries. You made new friends. You went out to new places. Stopped being so dependent on others. You started to become your own person; living for yourself, having dreams and hopes and ambitions, and stopped cheering for those who wanted you to stay down. Doesn’t that feel liberating? To be finally free of the tethers that glued you to those people who by proxy, glued you to that version of yourself that you didn’t want to be anymore. You wanted to be better; different from her. Have a do-over. And you got one.

But what happens when said people-new people- don’t recognise you anymore? For you are a blank canvas ready to paint your life with new colours, but in this world, your past is your greatest achievement. People see your grades, your schools, who you dated, who you were friends with- just to decide whether you are good enough for them or not. And that sucks, doesn’t it? Because not only are you back to being bound to her, you are also judged for being her. What can be done?

Understand that you are an ever-evolving being, you are not static, you are not a tree. You are a constant change of currents that always flow, always have rises and falls. That was your fall- this is your rise. Embrace it. Embark on the journey to not eradicate that version of you out, but embrace her; take the good and leave out the bad. As we all do in situations if we are optimistic about it. Chances are who you are now, won’t be acceptable to who you become next. Maybe your future self would say you were too critical, too anal, too much. There’s no certainty. But moving on from your past- and that version of your past that has no place in your present- is healthy. It is a good way to rid yourself from stagnant energy and be a beacon of light for those new times and wonderful memories to be created with people who cherish you for who you are- not what you are to them. People will still judge you based on your history- let them. They do not have the privilege of knowing the current you and it’s for you to decide whether they even can. Live for yourself, not for others. Always attract, never chase. Ending it here, catch you in my next one.