The Handover

I was having coffee on a Saturday morning and found myself planning how to be spontaneous. Which felt slightly contradictory. Lately, I’ve been thinking about things as "old me" and "new me." It is mostly because it’s the easiest way to explain why part of me still wants a rough itinerary for a completely free afternoon.

Old me likes structure, plans, timelines and clear outcomes. There is something profoundly reassuring about knowing what's happening, when it's happening and ideally, having a plan for what happens after that. To be fair, that version of me has been extremely useful. It got things done, met deadlines, built a career and consistently remembered to renew insurance policies before they expired.

New me, on the other hand, is less convinced everything needs to be planned quite so thoroughly. This version is more comfortable leaving some space, starting before there’s a complete roadmap and letting things unfold a little — a phrase that still makes old me visibly uncomfortable.

For a while, I assumed this was a straightforward transition. Old me would gradually step aside and new me would take over the role. A neat handover, clear responsibilities and possibly some handoff documentation. Instead, both versions appear to have remained fully employed. Old me still arrives with a comprehensive plan. New me looks at it, thanks old me for the effort and then casually ignores parts of it.

What's surprising is that they don't seem to be competing. They are more like colleagues with very different working styles who have reluctantly accepted they're stuck in the same office. One likes certainty; one likes possibility. One wants a map; one is willing to see what happens. Most days, they manage to reach some kind of compromise.

We tend to expect major life changes to feel like becoming someone entirely different. Instead, it feels more like managing a continuous internal negotiation, allowing different parts of ourselves to finally have a say — parts that were probably always there, just not always running the meeting. Still, it remains entirely unclear who is actually in charge. Current evidence suggests it's a committee.