I’ve been asked, more than once, whether I can remember who I was before the world told me who I should be. It sounds like the kind of question that assumes there was a quiet, untouched version of me waiting somewhere in the beginning — pure, original, unshaped. But the truth is, I don’t remember that person. I’m not even sure that person ever had a chance to exist.
From the start, there was always a voice. First it was parents, guiding, correcting, protecting. Teaching me to be polite, to say “please” and “thank you,” and to be seen and not heard.
Then teachers, with their red pens and structured expectations. Church added another layer with moral lines drawn clearly, and roles defined without much room for question or interpretation. By the time I understood the idea of choice, I was already deep inside a framework built by others.
The army didn’t ask who I was; it told me who to become. Discipline, order, identity, where to be and when to be there. It all came issued, like my uniform.
And when that chapter ended, the workforce was waiting with its own script: be productive, be reliable, fit the culture, climb if you can. Every phase came with instructions, and I followed them, sometimes willingly, sometimes not.
Society told me how to be a good husband — to love, honor, and obey — and how to be a good father and to teach my children well.
So when I’m asked to look back and remember who I was before all that, I come up empty. Not because I’ve forgotten, but because there was never a clear before. There was only a continuous shaping, a steady layering of expectations, roles, and responsibilities.
Maybe the better question isn’t who I was before, but who I am underneath all of it, or if there’s even an “underneath” left to find.
Maybe identity isn’t something that existed before the world spoke, but something pieced together from everything it said.
This post was written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Sadje.
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 
