Redefining "myself"

                                                                                                                                                                            ©2019 Yasar S

This is an attempt to recapture the little part of myself that I seem to have lost. The part that often noticed when the sky was in pretty colors, retraced her steps just to get another whiff of that nostalgic scent coming from a mysterious source. Not that I have completely stopped doing these things, it's just that there's always something more important to do - an assignment to finish, a feature to close, or a course to complete. With all of this, it seems like I've lost a tiny piece of myself somewhere and sometimes everything seems futile. I often find myself wondering - what is the purpose of all of this? Why am I always competing with myself ? Do I really have to win at everything? When did I start attaching my worth to things not under my control?
Only to realize; I've always been like this. I've always competed with myself - just that earlier I held the reins. I could stop if I wanted to, I had a grounded sense of what is important or precisely - important to me.
But it's not all that bad. I've grown in other aspects of my personality, I'm getting better at some other things that left me perplexed earlier, but I really do miss who I was before the 'adulting' kicked in.
What does one even mean by 'who I am' anyways? Shouldn't one's definition of who they are change and evolve? I can't do the things I enjoyed earlier as often now, but that doesn't mean I don't have new things I enjoy, even though they don't fit the definition of 'enjoyment' as defined by my younger self. I'm getting older and I'd like to think wiser (?) . I'm selective of the company I keep, I'd rather be by myself than let a toxic person around me, this my younger self would've deemed cowardice. I rarely finish the art projects I start now-a-days but I enjoy it nevertheless, something my younger self would be frustrated at. I still do hold myself to crazy and sometimes unrealistic standards, but now as a part of making sense of life I'm beginning to give myself the permission to just be. Be what the younger me would call boring, aloof, lazy or even uncreative. Slowly I try to let go of the idealisms, I stop demanding perfection from myself and those around me, and even though it might seem like I'm getting complacent and giving in to life, for now it seems like the right thing to do. Probably a few years down the line, when I hit some sort of mid-something crises, I might start expecting more of myself, pushing myself till I'm about to break - an attempt to relive my "younger" days. But for now, I think I'll just be.