I Feel Like a Sims

What does “better” even look like, and why does it feel so unsettling?

By: Esther Chan

As I prepare to graduate in a couple weeks, I realize I experience an unsettling “out-of-body” moment whenever I think too hard about all that has changed for me—both internally and externally. It makes me feel like a Sims. When I play the Sims game, I do all the work to “grow up,” I control all the movements, I make all the decisions—but this control is only as a witness from the outside. I am not experiencing it myself. It is as though I was and am in control, but someone else is experiencing my life and its transformations.

No one ever tells you about the feeling of detachment that comes when you experience personal growth—how it feels like you no longer have a firm foundation. If I’ve changed for the better, why do these changes make me feel as though I am not fully anchored to the ground? And what does “better” even mean?

It’s unsettling to evolve into someone you do not recognize, even when the change is positive. The way I acted and thought as a freshman, I can hardly recognize that version of myself. By the same token, my freshman self could never imagine the things I have confessed to people, the risks I have taken, and the path I am now on. With such severe detachment from who I used to be, these memories sometimes do not feel like my own. It is as though I am scrolling through someone else’s camera roll and reading a detailed journal entry of their thoughts, or this is all a dream, and someday I will wake up and exist in a completely different timeline.

It is not that I dislike who I have become and mourn for my old self, but part of me struggles to believe that this growth is mine to claim. Perhaps I’m confusing “growth” with feeling “better,” and maybe nothing has really changed. At the same time, how do I even define “better”? Is it something that can be quantified by the number of spiraling breakdowns I have? Is it something that describes the amount of good I do? Does it describe the number of people I’ve trusted? 

Amidst these bewildering questions, the greatest dilemma is struggling to claim the label of “better,” because “better” implies some sort of permanent improvement. While I know it is not true, part of me believes I have to earn that improvement in order to deserve it, otherwise it is a glitch in the system that temporarily allows me to be happier. The result is anxiously waiting for that faulty code to be fixed or for the other shoe to drop and wondering if I will suddenly spiral again, and all that maturity and growth will have been nothing but smoke and mirrors. 

It feels terrifying vacillating between the detachment of who I used to be and the uncertainty of who this supposedly new and improved version of myself is. If who I am now and who I was before seem blurry and distant to me, then I am left feeling like neither my past nor present growth is mine. I am left feeling so unanchored—like a smiley face balloon drifting toward the sky: happy but scared of floating too high and popping, yet simultaneously unable to return to the ground. As I float farther and farther, it brings an entirely new meaning to the phrase “change is scary.” And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s okay that I’m confused.

Perhaps one day I’ll be able to make peace with and benevolently look back at who I used to be. Maybe one day I’ll be able to say with assurance that I was in fact “better.” But until that day, I am content with knowing I am not stagnant. If I’m a floating, detached balloon, at least I’m still moving and not a deflated crumpled mark on the floor. If I’m a Sims going through the motions, at least I’m still getting up each day and not giving up. 

Maybe that’s all that matters—not that there are clear-cut solutions to all of life’s queries—but that within the intricate weavings that are the game of life, even if the uncertainties feel paralyzing, we keep growing and evolving and simply moving.