For a long time, I didn’t know what that meant. I thought "feeling yourself" meant confidence—walking into a room like you own it, posting a fire selfie, getting that promotion. And sure, that’s a version of it. But the real thing? The IFM of it all? It’s much quieter.
I felt fragments. I felt anxiety. I felt exhaustion. I felt a desperate need to be liked. But I did not feel myself . That specific, grounded sense of "oh, right, this is me" was missing. In its place was a collage of other people’s expectations, preferences, and emotional weather patterns. Finding yourself isn’t a treasure hunt. It’s an archaeological dig. You have to brush away the dirt of “shoulds”—you should be happier, thinner, more productive, more outgoing, more settled. You have to trowel past the layers of old hurt and other people’s opinions. i feel myself ifm
At first, the answers were terrifying. “I don’t know” was the reply to almost everything. But slowly, softly, preferences emerged. A love for rainy afternoons and thick sweaters. A distaste for small talk that drains my soul. A weird, nerdy passion for the way light hits water. For a long time, I didn’t know what that meant