I was flicking through some photos on my phone last week when I came across this one. I had taken it whilst working in the back bedroom of my house at the height of the pandemic lockdown, in January 2021

Auto-generated description: A man with curly hair and glasses is shown in a black-and-white image. He appears to be wearing a dark shirt and has earbuds in. The background features blurred abstract art and a lamp.

It is a great photo. I looked good in it, especially since I normally don’t like photos of myself, and I felt confident using it in my social media profiles. And at the time, I didn’t think much else and went on to change my profile photo a few weeks later. But looking at the photo last week, I thought to myself - ‘This is the guy I had always wanted to be’. A quick comparison to some more recent photos and I said ‘Yep, that’s the guy!’

Since beginning counseling, which has been great, I’ve been working through latent thoughts in an effort to help resolve long-held hang-ups. One of those is that I’ve been chasing a version of myself that I wanted to be for a very long time. I never felt confident in myself, had low self-worth, and found it difficult to connect with people. It was a lonely time, a difficult time, but one I’ve begun to emerge from. Seeing myself in photos lately, and in particular this photo, has shown me that I’ve become that guy.