■ I have been thinking about something lately. We all have troubles in life. Families can be complicated. Friendships change. People sometimes have their own agendas. And sometimes there is no great drama at all – we have simply outgrown the life we once had, writes Jessica Sneha Gray

I think that can be quite hard to admit. We are often told to hold on to people, places and relationships because they are part of our history. But history and the present are not always the same thing.

Those of us who have moved countries may understand this particularly well.

You can go back to a place you once called home and realise that, although you recognise the streets, the food, the language and the people, you no longer quite recognise the life you once lived there.

You may even wonder: Was that really me? The younger version of you who worried about certain things, tolerated certain relationships, wanted certain things, or imagined life would unfold in a particular way can almost feel like another person.

And I think that is okay.

It does not mean we are ungrateful for where we came from. It does not mean we no longer love the people who were part of that life. It simply means life has happened to us.

We have learnt. We have been hurt. We have laughed. We have raised families, lost people, met new people, changed careers, moved homes, made mistakes and hopefully gained a little wisdom along the way.

Like a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis, we cannot keep trying to squeeze ourselves back into the shape we once occupied.

The same applies to friendships and sometimes even family relationships.

Some people grow alongside us. Others remain connected to an earlier version of us. Neither necessarily makes anyone bad.

Sometimes our paths have simply changed.

I speak to quite a few people in my work, and I notice that those of us in midlife can be especially good at looking backwards.

We think about what we should have done. What we could have said. The friendships that disappeared. The family relationships that changed. The opportunities we missed.

Then, while regretting the past, we start worrying about how much future we have left.

And somewhere between the two we can forget to actually live the life we have now.

I am increasingly of the view that moving forward does not require us to erase the past.

We can cherish the old and celebrate the new. We can be grateful for people who once walked closely beside us without insisting they must walk beside us forever.

We can look back at an old version of ourselves with affection and still say, I am not that person anymore.

Perhaps that is one of the privileges of getting older. We have already lived several versions of ourselves.

And while we still have the opportunity to live, there is still another version waiting to be discovered.