Sometimes the things we think we’ve lost are simply waiting to be used again.
I wonder how many versions of ourselves we quietly leave behind as we grow older.
Not necessarily because we stopped loving those parts of ourselves, and certainly not because we consciously decided to let them go. Sometimes life simply becomes full. We take on responsibilities, change jobs, raise families, deal with disappointments, learn new skills, and spend years putting our energy into whatever needs our attention most. Before we realize it, something that once came naturally to us has become something we rarely do anymore.
Maybe you stopped writing. Maybe you stopped painting or dancing or singing. Maybe you stopped reading books simply because you enjoyed them. Perhaps you used to speak confidently in front of people, or you had a hobby that made hours disappear, or you were once endlessly curious about things that no longer seem to fit into your busy life.
Then one day, you remember that person and wonder, What happened to me?
I’ve been thinking about that question lately.
I used to love words
I had a very different relationship with English when I was younger. I didn’t just study it because it was a subject in school. I genuinely enjoyed playing with it.
I loved discovering a new word and finding a way to use it in a speech or in my writing. I enjoyed making a sentence a little more colorful, reaching for a more precise expression, or finding a word that seemed to capture exactly what I was trying to say. In high school and college, I joined oration contests, impromptu speaking activities, and literary competitions. I was one of those students English teachers could count on, and I was even among those who could get exempted from English remedial classes.
Looking back, I think I took that ability for granted.
Words came easily to me, and because they came easily, I didn’t imagine a time when they wouldn’t.
Then life moved on.
I spent many years in broadcasting, a field I genuinely loved. Broadcasting taught me a completely different kind of communication: how to think quickly, how to stay composed when something unexpected happens, how to work with different personalities, and how to keep a program moving even when things don’t go according to plan.
Communication was always part of my life, but English wasn’t necessarily the language I used most in those environments. Filipino and our local languages naturally took center stage, depending on the station, the program, and the people I was working with.
Ironically, I still found myself using English quite often, even when anchoring or hosting. I suppose English had become so familiar to me that it naturally slipped into my speech. But I wasn’t exercising it in quite the same way I had when I was younger.
And language, I’ve learned, can get rusty.
I could still write. That part never really left me. I could read, understand complex ideas, think in English, and put my thoughts together on paper. But spontaneous speaking became a different story.
Every now and then, I’d be talking and suddenly freeze. I would know exactly what I wanted to say, but the word I needed seemed to be hiding somewhere just beyond reach. I could almost feel it sitting there in my mind, but I couldn’t retrieve it quickly enough.
For someone who once loved words so much, that can be surprisingly humbling.
Maybe rust isn’t the same as loss
That’s what I’ve started to realize.
When something becomes difficult after years of not doing it, we often assume we’ve lost the ability. But perhaps what we’re experiencing is simply the effect of disuse.
A muscle that hasn’t been exercised doesn’t disappear. It becomes weaker. A language that hasn’t been spoken regularly can become harder to retrieve. A creative skill that hasn’t been practiced can feel awkward when you pick it up again.
That doesn’t mean the ability is gone.
It may simply need to be exercised again.
I think we forget this because we tend to measure ourselves against the version of us who was already good at something. We remember how effortlessly we used to write, speak, create, perform, or learn, and then become frustrated when we can’t immediately do the same thing today.
But we’re comparing a practiced version of ourselves with a rusty one.
Of course it feels different.
Mine started waking up through teaching
This is one of the reasons my work as an English Communications Coach on Preply has become more meaningful to me than I initially expected.
When I started teaching, I thought I was simply helping other people become more confident communicators. I didn’t realize that I would be giving myself a reason to practice my own spoken English again.
Every lesson asks something of me. I have to explain ideas clearly, listen carefully, respond to questions I wasn’t expecting, find the right words, and formulate my thoughts while another person is waiting for my answer. Sometimes I stumble. Sometimes I search for a word. Sometimes my brain apparently decides to take a coffee break at exactly the wrong moment. 😂
But I’m learning not to interpret those moments as evidence that I’ve lost something.
They’re practice.
And the more I practice, the more familiar the process becomes.
There are moments during a lesson when a word comes back to me naturally, or when I explain something and realize that the thoughts are flowing more easily than they did before. Those moments are small, but I notice them.
It’s almost like finding something in an old drawer and suddenly remembering, Oh, I still have this.
Maybe you’ve done this too
Perhaps there is a part of you that you’ve quietly written off.
Maybe you used to read constantly, and now you can barely get through a few pages before falling asleep. Maybe you once made things with your hands, took photographs, played an instrument, wrote stories, cooked creatively, or spent hours learning about something simply because you were curious.
Maybe you used to have opinions and ideas you couldn’t wait to share, and somewhere along the way you became hesitant to speak.
Or perhaps it’s something even less obvious. Maybe you were once playful. Maybe you were adventurous. Maybe you asked questions all the time. Maybe you had dreams that felt completely normal to you before adulthood taught you to be practical.
And now, when you remember that version of yourself, you might think, I don’t know what happened to her.
I’ve been thinking that perhaps we sometimes ask the wrong question.
Instead of asking, “What happened to me?”, maybe we should ask, “What have I stopped using?”
That question feels different.
It doesn’t immediately assume that something is gone.
It leaves room for the possibility that it is still there.
Life doesn’t always erase us
There are seasons when we genuinely have to put parts of ourselves aside.
When you’re raising children, building a career, caring for family, dealing with financial pressures, navigating uncertainty, or simply trying to get through a difficult period, you can’t always give equal attention to every part of who you are. Sometimes survival gets priority over creativity. Responsibility takes the place of curiosity. You become very good at doing what needs to be done.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
I don’t think we should feel guilty for the versions of ourselves we had to set aside in order to live the life we were living.
But perhaps there comes a point when we have a little more room to breathe, and something begins calling us again.
You pick up a book and remember how much you love reading. You suddenly want to write something that nobody asked you to write. You hear a song and feel like dancing. You become curious about a subject you haven’t thought about in years. You find yourself wanting to learn again.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss those feelings.
Sometimes, they’re recognition.
A part of you recognizing itself.
You don’t have to become who you were
This is something I’m reminding myself of, too.
Rediscovering yourself doesn’t mean trying to become your teenage self again. I’m certainly not interested in recreating my high school years. 😂 I’ve lived too much since then.
I’ve worked, loved, struggled, raised children, made mistakes, started things, stopped things, learned things the hard way, and experienced life in ways that younger me couldn’t possibly have understood.
I don’t want to go backward.
I want to bring the good parts forward.
The girl who loved words can come with the woman I’ve become. The curiosity can come with the experience. The creativity can come with the wisdom. The confidence I once had can grow into something different—perhaps something steadier because it is now supported by years of actually living.
Maybe that’s what rediscovery really is.
Not returning to an old version of yourself, but bringing the forgotten pieces into the person you’ve become.
Start small
If you’ve realized that there’s a part of yourself you’ve stopped using, you don’t have to make a dramatic change.
You don’t need to reinvent your life.
Start small.
Read a few pages. Write something nobody needs to see. Speak out loud. Take the class you’ve been thinking about. Pick up the instrument again. Open the sketchbook. Have the conversation. Practice the language.
And allow yourself to be rusty.
That’s probably the part we struggle with most.
We remember how good we used to be, so we expect ourselves to pick up exactly where we left off. When we can’t, we decide we’ve lost it and put the thing down again.
But what if being rusty is simply the beginning of getting better again?
You don’t have to be impressive on the first day.
You’re not auditioning for your former self.
You’re practicing.
One day, you may surprise yourself
Maybe you’ll write something and realize the words still come.
Maybe you’ll speak and notice that you’re no longer searching quite as hard.
Maybe you’ll finish something you started years ago. Maybe you’ll discover a new hobby that makes you feel strangely familiar with yourself again.
And perhaps there will be a small moment when you stop and think:
There you are.
Not the old you exactly. Not the person you were twenty years ago.
Just you.
Older, perhaps. Wiser. A little more tired in some ways and much stronger in others. Carrying stories you didn’t have back then.
Still here.
Maybe you didn’t lose yourself
Maybe you were simply busy becoming the person you needed to be for the life you were living.
Maybe some parts of you had to become quiet while other parts did the heavy lifting.
Maybe the things you miss about yourself aren’t gone at all. Maybe they’re rusty. Maybe they’re waiting for practice. Maybe they’re waiting for permission.
And maybe instead of saying, “I’m not that person anymore,” we can become curious enough to ask:
“What part of me is waiting to be used again?”
I think I’m asking myself that question now.
I’m speaking more. I’m teaching. I’m reading. I’m writing. I’m finding words again.
And every once in a while, something I thought I had lost comes back to me—not with some grand announcement, but quietly, almost casually.
A word comes.
An idea comes.
A sentence comes together.
And I recognize the feeling.
Oh.
You were still here.
A little note from The Mari Effect
Maybe rediscovering yourself isn’t about finding a completely new person underneath everything life has covered up. Perhaps it’s about noticing the pieces that survived—the curiosity, the courage, the creativity, the voice, the dreams, the things that once made you feel most like yourself.
You don’t have to become who you were.
You can simply bring those pieces with you into who you’re becoming.
Because sometimes, what we call lost is really just waiting to be used again. ❤️
