If you were to scan my life from afar, like the opening scene of every coming-of-age movie’s main character, you’d see a “collected” person — a girl who looks and feels authentic and original.
If you were to hit pause, zoom in, and look at the details, you’d see a scrapbook-ish collage.
The way I fiddle with my hair whenever I’m thinking? That’s from my primary school best friend. The way I take my coffee (way too often, way too sweet)? A habit I stole from my older brother. The way I hold my pen, attempt my makeup like my older cousin, say “exactly!! yay” when I’m excited? All borrowed. All stolen. All mine now. No returns. Fondly.
I used to think I was “finding myself,” but I’ve realised I’m actually just a living, breathing scrapbook of every person I’ve ever loved.
They say we leave a piece of ourselves everywhere we go. Leaving a bit of sparkle in every place. But no one talks about the pieces we take with us. My personality is essentially a “Greatest Hits of the Decade” album of the people who have shaped me. Each of them has somehow contributed a track.
The habits I didn’t ask for (but now I cannot live without).
It happened quietly. No big moment, no realisation. Just years of conversations and inside jokes and late nights and the slow, sweet theft of becoming. A phrase here, a laugh there, the way someone taught me to write a letter a certain way, to hold my mug a certain way, to know when to say what, to know when to stay or when to leave.
Here’s where it gets weird, it’s not just random everyday quirks and habits, I have embodied everyone I have ever loved or known. WDYM I stress-organise? Not clean, organise. I’ll reorganise my desk drawer at 11 PM before an exam because my older sister did this, and she always seemed to have her life together (she didn’t, but childhood me looked up to her way too much).
I also make elaborate Spotify playlists for hyper-specific moods, which I learned from my ex-bestfriend. I haven’t talked to her in YEARS but “songs for when it’s raining and you want to feel sad even if there’s nothing to be sad about, thankfully” lives on in my library, and honestly, it slaps. Some relationships end, but the playlists are forever.
The love languages I borrowed.
The way I show care is basically a greatest hits compilation. From my mom, I text “did you eat?” at random times and actually care about the answer. From my dad, I send articles and say “thought of you” (even if the article is completely unhinged and I probably sent it as a joke to my bestfriend). From my best friend, I save funny videos for weeks just to send them at the perfect moment. From my grandmother, I subconsciously carry snacks in my bag, not just for myself but my friends if they get hungry. From my brother, I jokingly bully the people I love and fully expect them to bully me back. And from that friend I made in a random class, I remember weirdly specific details from conversations and bring them up months later, which either makes people feel incredibly seen or slightly scared of me. There’s no in between.
The deeper part.
But beyond the surface-level quirks, the hair fiddling, the coffee order, the way I hold my pen: there’s an entire invisible infrastructure inside me built by other people.
My bravery isn’t mine. It’s borrowed courage from the high school teacher who taught me that “you have to face what you have to face, life goes on.” Even though he said it with strictness, I carry that with me now every time I’m scared.
My softness, the way I try to really listen when someone is hurting, is probably a copy of my grandmother or mom. The way they made space for pain without trying to fix it immediately.
I also didn’t know I loved the way the sky looks at 6:00 AM until my friends and I pulled an all-nighter and watched the sunrise. I didn’t know I could handle rejection until I watched my best friend brush it off with a laugh and a “their loss”.
These aren’t just habits. They’re survival kits. Every person I’ve ever loved has handed me a tool, a joke, or a perspective, and I’ve tucked them all into my pockets. I’m walking around with a heavy coat of memories and it’s so full of love, it makes me feel alive.
The wholesome theft.
We spend our entire adolescence trying to be “different” and “unique,” terrified of being basic. But the older I get, the more I realise that pure originality is lonely.
If I were entirely “original,” it would mean no one had ever influenced me. It would mean I hadn’t been paying attention. It would mean I hadn’t loved anyone enough to let their light leak into my own, to let their charms and quirks melt into me and shape me.
The “wholesome theft” of becoming ourselves isn’t about a lack of identity, it’s about the arrangement. You are the only person in the world with this specific combination of your mum’s smile, your ex-best friend’s taste in music, and your fifth-grade teacher’s habit of saying “exactly” when you’re excited.
You aren’t a copy. You’re not basic. You’re a curator. You’re a masterpiece built from the scraps of everyone who ever made you feel something.
The beautiful truth of my scrapbook.
I am a living, breathing archive of everyone who ever took time to teach me something, even if they didn’t know they were doing it.
And honestly? We spend so much energy worrying about “losing ourselves” in relationships, but the best parts of me are the parts I found through other people.
Every person I’ve ever loved has left their fingerprints all over who I am. In the way I make my coffee, the way I tell a story, the way I show up for people. And maybe that’s the most beautiful part of being human- we don’t just love people and let them go. We love them, and then we carry them with us, in all the tiny, strange, perfect ways they changed us.
So here’s to being unoriginal. Here’s to the phrases we stole, the habits we borrowed, and the laughs we inherited. Here’s to being made up of everyone we’ve ever loved.
I’m a walking scrapbook, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
For more such articles that feel like a warm hug, visit Her Campus at MUJ. And for a tour in my corner, visit Anushka Singh at HCMUJ.