are you yourself?

Just a little identity crisis to start the week ;)

Did you have a movie you were obsessed with as a kid?

Not just liked, obsessed. One you begged your parents to play on repeat. You knew every line, sang every song, lived and breathed that world until it bled into your own?

I did. But it wasn’t what you’d expect from a typical toddler. No talking animals. No tiaras or princess ballads. Ever an old soul, I liked 90’s rom coms. My favorite movie — my hyper-fixation — was My Best Friend’s Wedding. The one where Julia Roberts tries to sabotage a wedding in a last-ditch attempt to win over her best friend. Not exactly preschool material…

Every day, I begged my mom to put in the VHS, and every day I sat in front of the TV, transfixed. Not by the plot, necessarily (I barely understood it) but by the feeling. The colors, the music, the way people threw themselves at each other with wild, reckless emotion. There was one scene in particular that I loved: they are out at a karaoke bar and the bride-to be performs a terrible rendition of a popular song while her fiancé stares at her in loving amazement. It made my little heart ache in a way I couldn’t name.

The song? I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself, covered by Nicky Holland.
If you’re not familiar, it’s a breakup anthem. A song about aimlessness and identity; loss after love disappears. At that age, I had clearly never had my heart broken, but still, I clung to the lyrics and sang along:

“I just don’t know what to do with myself
Don’t know just what to do with myself…”

And apparently, after one of our countless rewatchings, I turned to my mom with my eyes wide, face scrunched in confusion, and said:

“But mama… I am myself.”

She was so struck by it, she wrote it down in our family memory book. I was not even 3 years old. But somehow, I knew exactly who I was: I am myself, therefore, why would I not know what to do with me?

I woke up thinking about this today. Because lately… I don’t feel that sure.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve found myself grappling with the idea of who I am. My mind turns it over and over like a stone in water. And as I ponder the question, I feel myself floating— drifting higher and higher, deeper and deeper, until suddenly I realize just how far I’ve gone. Just how little I actually know.

And then the panic sets in:
I’m so far from the ground.
Who am I??

As a woman nearing 30, I feel like I should have a solid answer by now. And in many ways, I do. People always tell me how confident I seem. How sure of myself. And that’s not a lie, I do walk through life with conviction. I know how to set goals and follow them. I know how to lead. How to move forward. How to tap into energetic frequencies.

But that doesn’t mean I always know who I am.

More and more, I find myself face-to-face with a kind of raw innocence, a deep vulnerability or nakedness of not being sure what to make of myself.

Am I nothing?
Or am I everything?
Do I attach myself to an identity or reject it completely?

Sometimes it feels terrifying. The weight of being nothing. The burden of being everything.

Yet strangely, I think I’ve been craving this unraveling. It’s been compelling me to write more, read more, connect more. Reach for more. As if peeling back all the layers might finally get me closer to whatever is real. Because at the core of it all, I don’t think I’m just trying to know myself. I think I want to be known. As if that (being seen, being understood) could somehow confirm that I even exist at all.

So when this memory crept in this morning — that image of a 3-year-old me, confidently declaring her existence — it stopped me in my tracks.

That little girl didn’t question herself.
She just was.
She is.

And maybe… that’s the version of me I need to return to.

walk boldly,

Caroline