Finding myself in a city that doesn’t know me

Written by Lubaina Kupasi. Graphic by Ananya Panchal.

Asking a 20-year-old how to find herself is a risky question. I know because the more I try to answer it, the less certain I become.

Moving to a new city was supposed to be the obvious first step. Leave home, become independent, discover who you really are. The kind of advice you might find in a coming-of-age movie, preferably followed by a dramatic haircut.Instead, moving away showed me how much of my identity I had never questioned.

For most of my life, I lived in one place, surrounded by people who knew me and routines that made it easy to understand what was expected. I developed opinions about who I was, what I believed, and what I wanted from life. Some were mine. Some came from the people around me. Most were probably such a mixture of both that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

Then I moved somewhere nobody knew who I had been.There is something terrifyingly beautiful about that. You aren’t invisible. You’re undefined.At home, people carry an archive of you. They remember what you loved as a child, what you refused to try, and unfortunately, the phases you were hoping for had been legally erased from public record.They may remember you so well that you forget you’re allowed to surprise them.

In a new city, nobody has that archive. No one can tell you that you’ve never liked a certain kind of music or that you aren’t the sort of person who would go somewhere alone. You can make a choice without having to explain why it doesn’t sound like you.

I expected that freedom would make change easier. Oddly, it made me cling more tightly to the person I thought I was.I am this. I am not that. I believe this. I would never do that.”I would never” is a dangerous thing for a 20-year-old to say.After two years away, I’ve changed my mind about things I once considered settled. I’ve enjoyed experiences I assumed I wouldn’t like. I’ve started questioning opinions I used to repeat without thinking about where they came from.None of that means my life before moving was false. It means I didn’t have enough distance to examine it.

We talk about personal growth as if it requires replacing the old version of ourselves. There should be a clear before and after, a dramatic realization, and, if we’re following the movie, better hair.

But sometimes growth means keeping what you value while making room for ideas that don’t fit neatly beside it. It means recognizing that changing your mind isn’t proof you never knew yourself. It might be proof you’re finally paying attention.

Distance has also changed how I see home. I appreciate some things more than I did when they were part of every day. Others make less sense now that I can look at them from the outside.Sometimes you have to leave something to see its shape.

That may be the greatest gift this city has given me: not a completely new identity, but a little space to look at the one I arrived with. To recognize which parts I chose and which parts were chosen for me and then to choose again.

I still don’t think I’ve found myself. I’m 20. I hope I haven’t. Maybe there is no final, authentic version of me waiting to be discovered. Maybe finding yourself isn’t discovery at all. Maybe it’s authorship.

You inherit a story written by your family, your home, the people you’ve loved, and the places you’ve left. Eventually, you realize you can hold the pen. You don’t have to erase what’s already there to write something new.

You don’t need to replace yourself to become yourself. You can keep you and still meet another you. And another. And another. Maybe finding yourself isn’t always leaving something behind. Maybe it’s making space for what you haven’t found yet.

And I think the world will always have space for more of you.