After a dance class in İstanbul, Defne found an old photograph on her phone. It showed her in İzmir several years earlier, standing beside a friend whose messages she now rarely answered. The picture was familiar, yet the person in it seemed strangely distant. Her daily routines, friendships and plans had changed. She wondered what she meant when she called that younger person “me”.
Maya suggested that memory provided the connection. Defne could remember the day, the heat and the conversation that had made them laugh. Those memories linked her present life to her past. Defne was not entirely convinced. She had forgotten large parts of that year, while some stories she remembered clearly had been corrected by friends. If memory was incomplete and sometimes unreliable, could it carry the whole weight of identity?
Another possibility was character. Perhaps Defne remained the same person because certain qualities continued: curiosity, a love of movement and a tendency to worry before unfamiliar situations. Yet qualities also changed. Through her work as a flight attendant, she had become more comfortable speaking to strangers. It would be odd to say that personal growth made her a completely different person, but equally odd to pretend that growth changed nothing important.
The conversation turned to relationships. Other people often hold parts of our history that we cannot recall ourselves. A friend may recognise an old habit or remind us of a promise. This suggests that identity is not only a private story inside one mind. It is also shaped by the ways people recognise and respond to us. However, other people can trap us in outdated descriptions. Being remembered as “the shy one” may become frustrating after years of building confidence.
For Defne, the practical issue was responsibility. If she had changed, did an old promise still matter? She felt that change alone could not erase every commitment. Otherwise, anyone could escape responsibility simply by announcing a new identity. At the same time, people needed room to reconsider goals and leave roles that no longer suited them. Continuity did not have to mean permanent obedience to every past decision.
They reached no final definition before leaving the café. Defne instead noticed that each explanation answered a slightly different question. Memory helped explain her sense of connection; character described patterns in her behaviour; relationships showed how others placed her in a shared history. The photograph did not prove that she had remained unchanged or become someone else. It invited her to ask which connections she wanted to preserve, and which changes she was ready to acknowledge.