Scroll back a few years in your own messages. The person you were is right there, unedited.

Old messages are the only record of you that was not written for the record. Nobody edits a group chat for posterity, so what is there is unpolished: what you cared about, who you were trying to impress, how you talked when you thought nobody would read it again. It can be embarrassing, and that is rather the point, since it is evidence of distance travelled.

Scroll back a couple of years for ten minutes, not to cringe but to notice. Pick one thing that has clearly changed and one that has not. Keep the second in mind, because it is probably something durable about you.