different, but still the same?
“Never the same, always myself.”
I came across this line recently in a fashion campaign, of all places…and I loved it immediately.
I've been thinking about it ever since because there is something so simple and true about it.
Life changes us…
Our work changes, relationships change, what we want changes. Sometimes even the things we were once so sure about don't feel quite as certain anymore. We find ourselves in places we never expected to be, making decisions we couldn't have imagined making a few years ago, or simply looking around one day and realizing...oh, I'm different now.
And through all of it, there we are…
I think about this a lot because I use the word return often here at Whirling Leaf.
Returning to ourselves, returning to what matters, returning to the Divine, returning to our own lives...
But lately I've been wondering if returning to ourselves isn't really about going back at all…
Because where would we even go back to?
The woman you were five years ago didn't know what you know now. She hadn't experienced everything you've experienced since. She hadn't met all the people you've met, walked through the disappointments you've walked through, received the beautiful surprises that found you along the way, or discovered all the things about herself that perhaps could only be discovered by living.
And yet I think sometimes we still carry this idea that there is an earlier version of ourselves we're supposed to find again.
Maybe the invitation isn't to recover who we were before life happened to us, but to become curious about who we are now because life happened for us.
We are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to want something different than we wanted before. Something that once fit beautifully may not fit anymore, and something we never imagined wanting may suddenly feel incredibly important.
We can become softer about certain things and stronger about others. We can surprise ourselves.
And none of that necessarily means we've wandered away from who we are.
Maybe this is part of what returning actually is.
Not going backward, but meeting ourselves again and again as we move through our lives.
Not immediately trying to decide whether this version of us is better or worse, whether we should be further along, whether we've changed too much or not enough.
Just having enough quiet to notice who is here now..
And perhaps saying...Oh, there you are.
Still you….just a woman who has lived a little more life.
“Never the same, always myself.”
— Madina