The grief of becoming someone your younger self wouldn’t recognize
By Amirah Idris
What if becoming someone your younger self wouldn’t recognize isn’t always a bad thing?
From a young age, we’re surrounded by stories of extraordinary lives. Whether through television shows, childhood cartoons or the people we admire, we begin imagining the individuals we hope to become. We create expectations for ourselves long before we fully understand what growing up entails. Yet somewhere between childhood and adulthood, those expectations begin to change.
The dreams we once held so closely may no longer reflect the people we are today. Our interests shift, our priorities change and the futures we once imagined begin to look unfamiliar. But does abandoning a childhood dream necessarily mean we’ve disappointed the younger versions of ourselves? Or could it simply mean we’ve grown into people we never knew we could become?
Growing up is often celebrated as a journey of self-discovery, but rarely do we acknowledge the grief that can accompany it. Grief is a word commonly associated with death or the loss of a loved one. However, loss doesn’t always involve saying goodbye to another person. Sometimes, it means coming to terms with a version of ourselves that no longer exists.
For some, that might mean grieving the innocence they once carried. For others, it could mean accepting that the future they envisioned as children is no longer the future they desire. Experiences, relationships and hardships can shape us in ways we never anticipated. The child who once desperately wanted to fit in might grow into an adult who values independence. Someone who once feared confrontation might eventually learn to stand up for themselves.
Yet there’s a complicated truth behind this kind of growth. Sometimes, the qualities we admire most about ourselves develop through experiences we wish we’d never endured. We may appreciate the strength we’ve gained while still feeling sadness for the younger versions of ourselves who had to navigate those experiences.
But recognizing that hardship contributed to our growth doesn’t mean we needed to suffer to become better people. Nor does it mean we have to be grateful for everything that hurt us.
Perhaps that’s what makes this kind of grief so difficult to understand. We can mourn what we’ve lost without wanting to return to who we once were. We can miss the possibilities of our childhood without wishing to relive it. We can be proud of who we’ve become while acknowledging that getting here wasn’t always easy.
I don’t think we should look at what we’ve lost as entirely negative. Whether it’s losing friendships, struggling academically or simply feeling like we’re no longer the people we used to be, we experience different forms of grief throughout our lives.
But I also believe our setbacks can become our strengths. If we went through life without experiencing setbacks, what would we learn from them? Sometimes, we don’t realize how much these experiences have shaped us or how much strength we’ve gained along the way.
Rather than feeling disappointed in who we’ve become, I think we should give ourselves more credit for how far we’ve come. Maybe our younger selves wouldn’t recognize us today, but that doesn’t mean they’d be disappointed. I think they’d be proud of how we’ve handled the setbacks life has thrown at us, even when things didn’t turn out the way we imagined.
Our stories aren’t finished yet. We deserve the chance to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and so do the younger versions of ourselves.
