You're Allowed to Miss Who You Were and Still Choose Who You're Becoming
I miss the version of me that was more fearless.
She moved fast. She didn’t over-explain. She trusted her instincts without needing consensus or validation. She walked into rooms like she belonged there. Because she decided she did.
She was bold in her ambition and unapologetic about wanting more. Less calculation, more conviction. Less protection, more expansion.
I miss how quickly she chose herself.
If you’ve ever caught yourself missing a version of you that everyone else thinks you should be relieved to leave behind, this letter is yours.
Nostalgia is warm. It edits. It highlights the glow and softens the edges. It says, “That was beautiful.”
Grief is honest. It doesn’t curate. It confronts. It says, “That version of you is gone. And something in you knows she’s not coming back in the same way.”
I’ve felt both.
Nostalgia lets me visit her. Grief makes me release her.
And the truth is, they often arrive together. One hand holding memory. The other asking me to evolve.
Most reinvention content skips this part entirely. It goes straight to the glow-up. The “new chapter” language. The before-and-after.
But in between those frames is a woman standing in the middle of two identities. Missing one. Not yet trusting the other.
That’s where the real work happens.
I tried to keep the pace. The speed at which I used to operate. The constant motion. The quick pivots. The ability to outrun discomfort by staying in action.
But that version of speed was built for a different season. It didn’t account for depth. For healing. For the kind of leadership that requires presence instead of just performance.
I had to learn that not everything worth keeping is meant to be carried forward unchanged.
Some things were survival strategies dressed up as strengths.
That realization doesn’t land easy. Because the survival strategies worked. They got you through. They earned results. Promotions. Revenue. Respect.
But at some point, the thing that saved you starts costing you.
And you have to choose: keep performing the version everyone recognizes, or start building the one only you can feel forming.
I didn’t give myself permission to grieve who I was. Not at first.
Permission came when pushing forward stopped working. When I realized I could achieve, build, lead, and still feel a quiet disconnect underneath it all.
That was the signal.
The door opened when I stopped treating my emotions like obstacles to optimize around. And started treating them like information.
Grief wasn’t regression. It was integration.
Once I let myself feel it, I stopped trying to rebuild my old life. And started designing a new one.
Reinvention is not starting over. It’s finally building what was always meant to be yours.
Here is what missing a former self actually taught me.
I am not the role. I’m the throughline.
The titles change. The seasons shift. The identities evolve. But there’s a core version of me that has always been there. Curious. Driven. Willing to take risks. Deeply invested in building something meaningful.
Missing a former self stripped away the illusion that any one version was the final version.
I’m not losing myself. I’m meeting myself at deeper levels.
And that is a much more powerful identity to stand in.
You’re not wrong for missing her.
Even if that version of you was complicated. Even if she made choices you wouldn’t make today. Even if other people think you’ve “outgrown” her.
She was still you. She carried you through something. She built part of the life you’re standing in now.
Missing her doesn’t mean you want to go back. It means you recognize her value.
Growth without acknowledgment is just disconnection.
You’re allowed to feel both. Pride in who you’re becoming. Tenderness for who you’ve been.
They’re not opposites. They’re the same season.
P.S. If this letter landed, share it with one woman who needs to hear that grief and becoming can coexist. She probably won’t tell you she’s missing a former version of herself. But she is.
MOMumentally,
Erika
Erika Hanafin Austria · Creator, MOMumental Reinvention
Co-Founder, NeonID · Former CEO, HeyMama · 2x Top 50 Women Leaders, Virginia