The thing about erasing the past self, is that it can be a lingering departure. It perhaps often is, because we are human and therefore soft-hearted at the worst (and best, yes) times.
Some of you may be muttering “she said soft-hearted, but she meant foolish” under your breath here, and yes, that too.
But only we get to call ourselves foolish, and no others should do it for us. Not to our faces at least.
Not only can it be a lingering, clinging sort of leave taking, to the point where some might question if you were actually ever going to leave, but it can be tempting to raise your own corpse, so to speak.
Don’t.
Erasing a past self (see how carefully I try not to use the easy but devastating and triggering words) is much like the process of moving into a minimalist life — sometimes you must come back again and again and again to the same things, the same people, the same emotions, and face them again and tell them they aren’t welcome in your life anymore.
No, you don’t spark joy. Hie thee off. Begone.
They say that when minimizing, the hardest things to bid farewell to are the ones with memories.
Therefore, be gentle with yourself and consider how much harder it is to goodbye entire groups of people. Even if they chafed at your soft bits and nipped at your vulnerable parts and made it that much harder to live the life you really want.
Even so. Their existence said something. Something you thought was comforting, but really in the end was only another illusion.
Lay your past self to rest.
If you’ve paid your debts and wiped the tables clean, lay your past self down to rest.
Go out and burn something (safely!) or shovel some earth if you must.
Do it every morning if need be. Or night, if you prefer to watch fire and earth in the dark.
The past can only be the past if you allow it to be.
Continue flailing in the swamp instead of taking the rope and hauling yourself out means you’ll continue to flounder in the muck.
Remember, if you start to feel soft-hearted — they made the choices to lead you to this decision.
They wouldn’t change, so you must.
They refuse to leave your life, so you must create a new one without them.
Change your phone number. Change your email. Change everything you can.
Pick a new name while you’re at it, because that is what’s next if you wish it.
For one, it is difficult to persuade yourself that you’re an entirely different person if you keep the same name.
For two, are you truly __?
I have changed names many times. I used to be a Jennifer or a Jenny, then a Tina, then (forcibly, because I was too young to know better) a Ting, and these days I usually answer to something else.
I saw Jennys as bright and bubbly, something I wished to be, but realized I wasn’t. Then realized being bright and bubbly took far more effort than I wished to expend.
If you’ve read the Anne of Green Gable series and met Elizabeth…

“
“‘And this is Elizabeth?’ I said.

“‘Not tonight,’ she answered gravely. ‘This is my night for being Betty because I love everything in the world tonight. I was Elizabeth last night and tomorrow night I’ll prob’ly be Beth. It all depends on how I feel.’

“There was the touch of the kindred spirit for you. I thrilled to it at once.

“‘How very nice to have a name you can change so easily and still feel it’s your own.’

“Little Elizabeth nodded.

“‘I can make so many names out of it. Elsie and Betty and Bess and Elisa and Lisbeth and Beth…but not Lizzie. I never can feel like Lizzie.’

“‘Who could?’ I said.

~~

“She was Beth that night…it is only when she is Beth that she will talk of her father. When she is Betty she makes faces at her grandmother and the Woman behind their backs; but when she turns into Elsie she is sorry for it and thinks she ought to confess, but is scared to. Very rarely she is Elizabeth and then she has the face of one who listens to fairy music and knows what roses and clovers talk about. She’s the quaintest thing, Gilbert…as sensitive as one of the leaves of the windy poplars, and I love her. It infuriates me to know that those two terrible old women make her go to bed in the dark.
“

Speaking of which, I should reread the series, because Anne is, as ever, a kindred soul. And now, here in 2023, it’s nice to step away from court intrigues and revolutions and endless battles to hear about buttermilk secrets and moonbeam shallops and how Tomorrow is just around the corner. Perhaps close enough to hook onto, even.
Anyway.
Today I am Ai and Katja. One tomorrow in the future, I might be Kit or Thryn or Terene. But likely not Kitty, because that is a particular sort of name for a specific sort of person.
We’re here because we understand words have power, yes?
Therefore, inhabit the belief that names have more power than you think.
Choose a name. Invest yourself into it. Become it.
It is your choice if you want a name that fits now-you or if you want something to grow into. Or perhaps you wish to be a living memory of someone else — your life, your choice, your name.
And because we are here, seven hundred odd words in, I will say it bluntly and I will say it quick:
Kill the past self. Kill it dead dead dead. Drive stakes into the corpse if you need to, so it will stay put in the grave you lay it in.
Dance upon the grave every morning to tamp the earth down so the dead cannot rise and haunt you.
Look at the grave marker and note: that is not you. (much easier to do if names are different, but I will not persuade you any further because who likes evangelizing)
The grudges and loves and terrors and debts of the person who has been put there — is not you.
All else is noise.
Noise is annoying and it can be persistent, but we will try not to let it drive us mad.
Because you see, nothing will change later that hasn’t changed already.
You might think that is a bit too cynical, but truly, why gamble your life on such a chance?
Kill the dead every night. Make sure the dead stay dead every morning.
Live free. Be your true self.