Google Photos showed me a video from April 2020.

One of those memories you don’t ask for.

Suddenly your phone decides:

Here. Look at this person you used to be.

It was during lockdown.

At the time, I was living in a huge house in Dublin with around fifteen people.

Yes.

Fifteen.

That story deserves its own article.

It was someone’s birthday, and we were preparing a surprise.

My job was to distract him.

So naturally, I decided the best distraction was to sit him down and start some unnecessarily deep philosophical conversation.

Very subtle.

Eventually, everyone was ready.

We surprised him.

People came into the room.

There was food.

Drinks.

Birthday things.

And at some point I said:

“Okay, I’m going to change.”

Then I left the room.

The camera kept recording.

And six years later, sitting on my sofa, I watched what happened next.

The room without me

Nothing dramatic happened.

Nobody became sad.

Nobody stopped talking.

The party continued.

But the energy scattered.

People stood around.

Some talked in little groups.

Someone moved over there.

Someone else stayed over here.

Everything was fine.

Just slightly disconnected.

Then I came back into the room.

And almost immediately, I heard myself saying something like:

“Come on. Let’s do something. Put some music on. Let’s go.”

People moved.

Someone put music on.

People started laughing.

Someone joined someone else.

The room somehow became a room again.

And I sat on my sofa six years later staring at the screen.

Because I’d never seen myself like that before.

I thought:

Oh.

So this is what I bring.

We rarely get to experience ourselves

This sounds obvious, but I don’t think we think about it very often.

You spend your entire life inside yourself.

You know what you’re worried about.

You know what you’re insecure about.

You know the stupid thing you said three hours ago that you’re still replaying.

You know what you think you should improve.

You know what you don’t like about your body.

You know where you feel behind.

You know everything happening backstage.

But you don’t actually know what it’s like when you walk into a room.

Other people do.

You don’t.

You never get to experience yourself arriving.

You don’t know how the energy changes.

You don’t hear your laugh from across the table.

You don’t know what your face looks like when you’re genuinely interested in someone’s story.

You don’t know how somebody feels after talking to you.

You only know what it feels like to be you from the inside.

And sometimes those are two completely different experiences.

That video gave me something I almost never get.

A before and after.

The room without me.

The room with me.

And I felt proud.

Not in an:

I’m amazing, everyone needs me

kind of way.

Something quieter.

I realised:

I bring energy.

I connect people.

I hadn’t known that was visible.

I don’t want to go back to who I was in 2020

Watching old videos can be dangerous.

Especially when you don’t completely recognise the person in them anymore.

2020 me looked freer.

More naïve.

Less analytical.

Less aware of everything that could go wrong.

There was something spontaneous about her.

She didn’t seem to be constantly measuring her life.

She was just inside it.

And for a second, I thought:

I miss her.

But then I corrected myself.

I don’t think I want to be her again.

She didn’t know what I know now.

She hadn’t learned the boundaries I’ve learned.

She hadn’t lived through some of the things I’ve lived through.

She hadn’t made the mistakes I’ve made.

She didn’t have the self-awareness I have now.

I don’t want to go backwards.

I think I want something she had.

There’s a difference.

Maybe I don’t miss my old self.

Maybe I miss her vitality.

Her willingness to participate.

The part of her that didn’t need everything to make sense before enjoying it.

And maybe growing doesn’t have to mean choosing between the two.

Maybe I can keep what I’ve learned and take some of her with me.

Maybe joy comes back quietly

The strange thing is that the day I watched that video hadn’t started particularly well.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

I didn’t get a dream job.

Nobody arrived at my door declaring their love.

My future didn’t suddenly organise itself.

My bank account didn’t magically transform.

There was no dramatic breakthrough.

But throughout the day, little things kept happening.

I talked to my mum for almost two hours.

And while we were talking, I noticed something.

I sounded happy.

Not everything in my life is perfect happy.

Just… alive.

I could hear myself telling her about things I was doing.

Things I was learning.

Things I was thinking about.

And I realised I’d grown.

Later, I exchanged voice notes with someone younger in my family.

She was talking with this confidence that made me laugh.

Basically:

Everyone treats me like a princess. Why would I expect anything less?

And I thought:

Good.

Keep that.

An old friend messaged me.

We exchanged voice notes.

Someone invited me to dinner.

I replied to an Instagram story from my Italian teacher and we had a nice little interaction.

Nothing happened.

And somehow, everything happened.

I remember thinking:

This is it.

Life can appear from anywhere.

A message.

Dinner.

A person.

An invitation.

A conversation.

A stupid Instagram reply.

There are so many things that aren’t part of the story yet.

That night, I had too much love

I went to sleep around midnight.

Then I woke up at four in the morning.

And I had this enormous feeling of tenderness.

It was almost ridiculous.

I wanted to kiss my mum.

I thought about someone I had once loved and felt affection.

I hugged my stuffed animal.

I kissed it.

Yes.

Apparently at four in the morning I become emotionally available to inanimate objects.

And lying there, I realised something.

I wasn’t feeling empty.

I wasn’t lying awake wishing somebody would love me.

It was almost the opposite.

I had so much love inside me that I needed somewhere to put it.

That felt different.

Because for a long time, I think I understood love mainly through receiving it.

Who chooses me?

Who calls?

Who stays?

Who loves me?

Who shows up?

And suddenly I was experiencing love as something I possessed.

Something generated inside me.

Something I could give.

Not because somebody had earned it.

Not because I needed something in return.

It was just there.

Love and responsibility are not the same thing

There was another thing the video made me notice.

The woman who walks into the room and says:

“Come on. What are we doing?”

is very familiar to me.

She’s the person who connects people.

Organises.

Notices.

Helps.

Anticipates what everyone needs.

Makes something happen.

And that’s beautiful.

I like that part of myself.

But it can also become exhausting when it turns into a job.

There’s a difference between bringing energy into a room and believing you’re responsible for the room.

There’s a difference between caring for people and managing them.

There’s a difference between loving someone and making their emotional life your responsibility.

I think I’ve confused those things sometimes.

Maybe because I’m good at noticing.

Maybe because helping comes naturally.

Maybe because when you know you can change the energy, it’s easy to start believing you always should.

But I don’t have to.

The video showed me that I can walk into a room and bring something.

Growing up has taught me that I don’t always have to.

I can connect without becoming responsible for everyone.

I can love without managing.

I can be warm without mothering.

Sometimes I can sit down and let somebody else choose the music.

The parts of us that don’t disappear

I think we sometimes assume that when we stop feeling like ourselves, the old parts have disappeared.

But maybe they haven’t.

Maybe they just get buried.

Under work.

Money.

Heartbreak.

Immigration paperwork.

Plans.

Disappointments.

Responsibilities.

Questions about what the fuck you’re doing with your life.

You become serious because life has required seriousness.

And eventually you forget that there are other parts of you underneath it.

Then one day Google Photos sends you a random video.

And you watch a woman walk back into a room.

And something inside you says:

There you are.

Maybe finding yourself again isn’t always about reinventing yourself.

Maybe sometimes it’s remembering what was yours before life became so serious.

Curiosity.

Affection.

Ridiculous amounts of love.

Connection.

Energy.

The instinct to walk into a room and say:

Come on. What are we doing?

I don’t want to become the woman I was in 2020 again.

I’m glad I’ve changed.

But I’m also glad I found her in that video.

Because apparently she left a few things behind for me.

And maybe I’m ready to pick them up again.

What part of yourself have you forgotten simply because you haven’t seen it in a while?