You replace every cell in your body over time and still answer to the same name. Change doesn’t erase you.

Identity is not stored in the material. Your body swaps itself out and you keep the same name, the same handwriting and the same sense of humor, because what makes you you is a pattern rather than a set of parts. Worth knowing when you fear that changing your plans will cost you yourself. The pattern survives the swap.

If you are becoming different from who you were, let it happen without filing a missing person report. Keep one or two things that are genuinely yours and let the rest move. You are allowed to be unrecognizable to people who knew you in middle school.