Writers 
I Met Myself on the Way Back
I spent so much time trying to find myself that I didn't notice when I was slowly becoming someone else.
I wanted purpose so badly. I wanted to know why I was here, what I was meant to do, and whether my life would eventually mean something. I wanted to look back someday and know that I had not simply existed. So I started chasing. I chased opportunities, success, recognition, and every little thing that made me feel like I was moving forward.
I started looking around too much. Other people's lives became measurements for mine. Someone was achieving more, someone was further ahead, someone was already doing what I was still praying about. And without realizing it, I began to feel like I was behind.
So I adjusted myself.
I changed some of the things I wanted. I became more concerned about how things looked than how they felt. I began making choices because they made sense to everyone else, even when they didn't sit right with me. I told myself I was growing, when sometimes, I was simply trying to fit in.
The strange thing is that nobody really noticed.
I still looked like me. I still laughed. I still showed up. I still talked about my plans. From the outside, nothing seemed wrong.
But I knew.
There were things I had started accepting that the old me would have questioned. There were parts of myself I had pushed aside for the sake of being accepted. There were things I once cared about deeply that I no longer had the courage to care about.
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly trying to prove that you are doing well. You can achieve things and still feel empty. You can be surrounded by people and still feel disconnected from yourself. You can be moving every day and still have no idea where you are actually going.
Eventually, I got tired. So I stopped for a moment.
I realized something hurtful, that I had confused movement with progress. I had assumed that because I was busy, I must be moving toward purpose. But purpose is not simply about how far you go. It is also about whether the person you become along the way is still someone you can recognize.
Because turning back meant admitting that some of my choices had taken me away from who I wanted to be. It meant looking honestly at the things I had ignored. It meant accepting that some doors I had fought so hard to enter were never meant for me.
So I began the journey back.
It was not dramatic. There was no sudden moment when everything became clear. It happened slowly. I started paying attention to the things that gave me peace. I started remembering the dreams I had before comparison became part of my vocabulary. I started listening to that quiet voice inside me again.
And somewhere in all of that, I realized that the person I thought I had lost was still there.
I met the version of myself that existed before I became so concerned about being impressive. The one who could dream without worrying about whether the dream looked good enough. The one who didn't need everyone to understand her journey. The one who could be happy about small things and didn't feel the need to turn everything into proof of progress.
She was still there, buried beneath fear, expectations, mistakes, and the noise of becoming.
And meeting her again felt strangely familiar.
Maybe that is why some seasons of our lives feel like they are falling apart. Sometimes, what feels like losing direction is actually an invitation to stop and ask whether the direction we chose was ever ours in the first place.
I am still figuring it out. I don't have everything together, and I don't think anyone really does. But I know now that I don't want to arrive at the end of my journey and realize that I became someone I had to spend the rest of my life trying to find again.
I want the things I achieve to still look like me.
I want to grow without becoming unrecognizable, and if I ever find myself running so hard again that I forget who I am, I hope I remember to stop.
Not at the end of the road.
Not when I finally had everything figured out.
But somewhere between everything I had become and everything I was trying to be,
I met myself on the way back.
