Meeting My 26-Year-Old Self Again
Over 20 years ago, I lived in Japan.
It was for a year. It was on a whim. And it fundamentally changed my life — my resilience, my confidence, the person I went on to become.
But for a long time, the memory of it has felt messy. Mixed up. Because like everything in my life, it was distorted by my ADHD.
Meeting and living with new people from all over the world meant some of them found me too much. Too loud. Too intense.
A lack of planning and forethought meant I never completed the paperwork to re-enter Japan on my visa — so a trip home for a family birthday quietly became a permanent end to the adventure.
Struggles with object permanence meant that promises to keep in contact with good friends fell away years ago, long before social media made that easy. Fond memories, slowly forgotten.
It was all a little… complicated.
Then last week, we took a short family trip to Tokyo.
And I got to revisit my 26-year-old self with the experience and clarity of a 47-year-old.
I got to see that girl. And how impressive she was.
She moved to a non-English-speaking country she'd never even visited before. She couldn't speak the language. She hadn't done the job before. She knew nothing.
And she succeeded.
I had forgotten how much Japanese I could still speak and understand. I had forgotten how confident I am on the Japanese train system. I had forgotten how much I knew about Japanese culture, food, life.
Four days was the perfect little reminder that those experiences were real. That they mattered. That they were an important part of my story.
The ADHD juxtaposition
I have always found it difficult to reconcile the contradiction that so often comes with ADHD.
I excel at doing the big, bold, difficult things that others wouldn't dare — moving country, starting businesses. And I stumble at the most basic parts of life, like day-to-day routine.
Doing the big, bold things has always come so easily. Maintaining consistency in the everyday is so hard.
So why should I be proud of something that just comes naturally? Society tells us to value the things we work hardest for. I never worked hard at the big, bold things — so how was I supposed to value them?
Rewriting the story
With the benefit of hindsight, more context — my ADHD diagnosis — and a bit of time, I'm choosing to rewrite history.
What I did was cool. Not for anyone else. For me.
I've done some genuinely amazing things, and those memories are mine to enjoy.
This might sound obvious. It's taken me a while to get here.
Your life is just for you. Your memories are just for you. They're whatever you decide they are — and no one gets to determine their value but you.
Over to you
If you got to look back over your life, just for yourself, and rewrite the story — what would you assign new value to?
What would you take out of the shadows and feature as a highlight instead?
Now that you know what you're really capable of, what are you finally ready to call amazing?
If this piece stirred something for you — a memory you've never quite let yourself be proud of, a version of you that deserves a second look — I want you to know this: coaching with Exhale isn't about being pushed, corrected, or told how to see your own story.
It's a calm, supportive space to look back with fresh eyes. To untangle the parts of your history that ADHD has made feel messy or "too much." To find the moments that were actually extraordinary, and finally let yourself claim them.
If that sounds like something your system is craving, you're warmly welcome.