This is something I think about more than I probably should. There is not one version of you walking around in the world. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, scattered across conversations you don’t remember, moments you didn’t realize were pivotal, and people who walked away long before you ever felt finished becoming.
The You That Isn’t Yours
Every person you’ve ever interacted with carries a version of you in their head. That version is shaped by the moment they met you, the version of you they needed you to be at the time, what you reminded them of, and what they unconsciously projected onto you.
Sometimes that version is flattering. Sometimes it’s painfully incomplete. Sometimes it’s built entirely on misunderstanding.
Some people know you as kind because they met you when you were still giving too much. Some know you as distant because they arrived after you learned how to protect yourself. Some know you as strong because they only ever saw you survive. Some know you as too much because they benefited from a quieter version of you and resented the change.
None of these versions are lies. None of them are the whole truth.
You Don’t Control the Narrative
That’s the part that messes with your head.
You can explain yourself with clarity and compassion and still be misunderstood. You can grow, change, heal, do the work—and someone will still be holding onto a version of you that no longer exists. Or worse, a version that never did, but made sense to them at the time.
Someone remembers you from your worst day and quietly decides that’s who you are. Someone else only knows you from your most polished moments and assumes you’ve never struggled. Someone remembers a boundary you set as a betrayal because it interrupted their access to you.
You don’t get to correct those memories. You don’t get to submit context after the fact. Their version of you is sealed the moment they stop listening.
Why This Hurts More Than It Should
It hurts because we crave coherence. We want to feel internally consistent, externally understood, and fairly represented.
But most relationships aren’t built for that. They’re brief, or situational, or tethered to a specific season of your life. People don’t experience you in your entirety. They experience how you made them feel in a moment, and that emotional imprint becomes the version they carry forward.
That version sticks, even when you’ve outgrown it.
The Trap of Self-Correction
Once you realize this, it’s tempting to try to manage it. To over-explain your intentions. To soften your edges. To stay consistent at all costs so no one can accuse you of changing.
You start performing clarity. You edit yourself mid-sentence. You anticipate misunderstandings before they happen and exhaust yourself trying to prevent them.
It still doesn’t work. You cannot audition for every role you play in someone else’s story, and you will burn yourself out trying.
The Quiet Freedom in Accepting It
Here’s the relief most people don’t talk about.
Once you accept that a different version of you lives in everyone’s head, you can stop chasing the impossible task of being universally understood. You don’t need to fix the you that exists in someone else’s memory, because that version is no longer accessible to you.
It lives in the past, frozen in someone else’s perception. The only version you can tend to is the one you wake up with—the one still breathing, still learning, still becoming.
What Actually Matters
The people who stay are the ones who matter. The ones who allow their understanding of you to evolve. The ones who let new information in instead of clinging to an outdated image.
They meet you where you are now, not where you used to be. They allow you to contradict yourself, to change your mind, to become softer or louder or steadier as life demands.
Everyone else is holding onto a snapshot, and snapshots were never meant to tell the whole story.
So Let Them Have Their Version
Let people remember you however they need to. Let them misunderstand. Let them simplify you into something easier for them to carry. Let them freeze you in a moment you’ve already outgrown.
You don’t owe anyone narrative control. You owe yourself honesty, presence, and care.
The only version of you that actually matters is the one you’re still becoming—and she doesn’t need permission to keep going.
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