Please Forward All Mail to the Current Version of Me

The other day, a stranger from the internet’s fossil record materialized in my X mentions. The person said they knew me on DeviantART back when dinosaurs roamed the earth (so, early-mid '00s or so) and were looking for an old photomanipulation piece I did way back then.

The person was also apparently in possession of some detailed archive catalog of my former work — detailed enough that they knew a specific piece was "missing" from it — but... that's a whole other conversation for another day.

As is often the case when people I don't remember reach out to me from the very distant past, it was like receiving a telegram from a ghost who still has dial-up.

Back then, I was very moderately internet-famous for making moody digital painting-collage mashups with suspiciously poetic titles. I worked mostly in late-night Photoshop sessions, powered by carbs and existential dread, and people loved that work. Unfortunately, a small subset of them also decided they loved me in the way that only early-2000s internet strangers could — intensely, permanently, and with zero sense of perspective involved.

So when someone from way back then suddenly resurfaces in 2025 (or seems to remember my former self better than I do), my first instinct is usually to unplug the router and move to a new dimension.

But this time, I resisted that instinct and actually answered. Politely and publicly, like an adult who occasionally handles her own emotional paperwork. And that's pretty much all it took to get me thinking about the strange phenomenon of being asked to perform an earlier version of yourself on whatever level.

Why the Past Feels Like a Summons

When someone remembers you from a long time ago, they’re rarely picturing the person sitting behind your current keyboard. They’re picturing the character they thought they knew in some other life. For them, you still fit that image. But from your point of view, you’re an operating system that's been upgraded many times and no longer runs on Windows Vista.

That gap creates some really odd friction. Sure, I guess it's flattering to be remembered, but it can also feel like you’ve just been subpoenaed by history. You can almost hear the gavel:

“The court calls 2006 You to the stand.”

You know that person is gone, but part of you still feels obligated to show up and testify in their place, regardless.

What makes it worse is that memory is a terrible historian. The other person’s version of you may not be wrong, per se, but it is incomplete. Whether they meant to or not, they froze you at a single point in time. Meanwhile, you’ve changed fonts, color palettes, and probably even metaphysics a time or ten.

They’re paging a museum exhibit you perhaps never were to begin with. Meanwhile, you’re just trying to finish up your workday.

How to Keep Your Sanity When Old Versions Resurface

Every time an old acquaintance, ex-coworker, or former online follower reaches out, it triggers a mini identity audit. Allow me to share a few things that help me keep that from turning into existential tax season.

Answer as the current resident

You don’t owe anyone a performance of who you used to be, regardless of how nicely they ask. You can totally respond as the version who pays bills and eats vegetables now. If they expected angst-ridden you, they’ll adjust (or they won’t).

Not your problem either way.

So, in my case, I didn't respond with a manifesto on identity shifts this person no doubt didn't want to hear about. Instead, it was just, “Hey, describe the picture. If I still have it, I’ll look.” No séance necessary.

Don't rehearse for an audience that no longer exists

Sometimes nostalgia tries to drag you into reenactments. Resist that shit. You’re not in a high-school reunion talent show (and thank God for that).

People who genuinely want to reconnect will be happy to meet you where you are. People who don’t will quietly back away when they realize you stopped using lens-flare brushes a decade and a half ago.

Expect a weird emotional lag

Even when the interaction is perfectly friendly, you’ll probably feel odd for a day or two. (I know I always do.) That’s just your nervous system remembering how the world used to smell back in whatever era you've just been summoned to for a hot minute — cheap perfume and freshly unboxed laptops, maybe.

Let it pass. Don’t pull a "me" and over-interpret the nostalgia hangover.

Check for the upgrade

Consider what’s different about how you’d handle this now compared to how things would have gone down back then. That’s your proof of growth. I personally count the fact that I didn’t immediately spiral or over-share as decent progress.

Use humor as the pressure valve

I won't try to speak for you, but laughter is how I personally stop the past from gaining squatter’s rights. So, my go-to internal script eventually defaulted to:

“Ah yes, the early-internet era, when everyone’s trauma was sepia-toned.”

You can’t be haunted and amused at the same time. The brain simply won’t allow it.

Everyone Is Somebody Else's Character Sheet

Naturally, this isn’t just about DeviantART or dealing with fans some other version of you might have had in the distant past. We’re all frozen somewhere in somebody else’s mental scrapbook.

You’re the “funny intern” to one person, “that neighbor with the loud blender” to another, and possibly “the emotionally unavailable barista” to a third. You might be a hero in some of those stories and a villain in others. And you can’t really do anything about that. All you can do is decide who gets to hold the remote right now.

This helps you treat these encounters as mini status reports and decide a few things as a result. How do I want to show up today? Which parts of the old identity still serve me, and which belong in storage (possibly indefinitely)?

Most of us spend years chasing self-improvement without ever realizing that some of our checkpoints come disguised as old acquaintances. Because growth doesn't actually have much to do with whether you've finally perfected your morning routine. It's easier to see it in how you respond when someone unexpectedly calls you by an old nickname.

When the Universe Schedules Its Own Holding Pattern

If you're a fellow astrologer, then you likely also know that Mercury is in retrograde right now. To really paraphrase, that's often a phase when miscommunications abound and old connections resurface.

I call it Life’s Quarterly Reboot Test. The universe presses “refresh,” and suddenly your inbox fills all the way up with ghosts and weird memories you'd rather not think about.

Naturally, you don’t have to believe in astrology to appreciate the metaphor. Retrograde moments are, in essence, just feedback loops — unfinished business, unresolved feelings, unsent emails. They come back every so often to confirm whether you still need them.

If you do, great. Go right ahead and tie up the thread. But if you don’t, close the tab.

It's like when some essential piece of software you rely on asks, “Do you still want this feature enabled?” You can click “no” guilt-free.

Turning Encounters into Useful Practice

Instead of dreading these reminders, I've slowly trained myself to treat them like skill drills for self-definition over the years instead. Here, have some tips:

• Audit your boundaries. Did you respond out of curiosity or obligation? If it’s the latter, you just spotted a leak in your energy budget. Patch it. Patch it right now.
• Update your story. When you tell people about your work or your life now, do you still lead with the 2010 version of your biography? Retire that shit. Nothing ages faster than a personal narrative.
• Keep what's still true. It could be that the old you had insights the new you eventually forgot. Early versions are sometimes rough drafts with good bones. Salvage what’s worth keeping and yeet the rest into the recycle bin where it belongs.
• Notice your tone. Are you warm, defensive, performative, bored? The tone you throw out there in these moments can tell you more about your relationship with your past than a thousand journal entries.
• End conversations when they're done. Not every re-connection needs to blossom into renewed friendship, and it's perfectly OK not to want them to. Some can just be finite exchanges, and that's plenty if that's all you want to give of yourself.

What People Usually Forget (and Shouldn't)

As refreshing as that might feel at times, the big goal here isn't to erase your former self. That person built the scaffolding for who you are now, but this doesn't mean you have to live inside that scaffolding forever.

When people knock on the door of your past, you can answer without moving back in. You can reminisce without regressing and appreciate that your early internet persona helped someone else discover art, even if it also made you allergic to compliments written in Papyrus.

Everyone’s version of this story looks different.

Your own visitor might be an ex from college (been there!), a former coworker who still calls you by a nickname you hated, or an algorithm resurfacing photos you’d really rather keep buried. The details might change, but the question will always remain the same:

How do you stay grounded when the past insists on making small talk?

And if anyone else messages me about a 2007 photomanipulation? I’ll at least consider helping them, provided they’re prepared for 2025 Cat, upgraded firmware and all.