The Lives I No Longer Have Access To

By Natalie McCarty

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the lives I no longer have access to.

There’s something bittersweet about conquering the lives that trouble you. About “getting over it.” About success and career. About leaving the moment behind. No one really warns you about that part.

When you’re first starting out, ambition feels like an unrelenting hunger. You wake up every morning with the gnawing sense that you have something to prove, that you need to chase something just out of reach. Possibilities stretch endlessly before you. There is feverous hope. There is urgency in the day, tenacity in the late nights. A stubbornness in the high heels that pound the pavement on Broadway and East 10th Street, searching for a job. A trust in the gaze of the man you think is the one. A faith in the idea of a life that can be shared. A life of variety, of experience, of newness, of uncertainty, of discovery.

Still from La La Land

And then one day, you catch it. You get your dream, you find your purpose. You hold it in your hands, and what once felt intangible solidifies into reality. You made it, but at what cost?

The urgency fades as the juggling begins. The thrill of the chase is replaced by the weight of having arrived. You look around and wonder if, in all that striving, you left something behind. The version of yourself who ran on hope, who believed in uncertainty, who found poetry in the unknown.

No one warns you about the loneliness of fulfillment.

Still from Past Lives

In this moment, my life is rich with experiences and opportunities. My calendar is full, my name is attached to things I once could only imagine. The version of myself who lay awake at night, foaming at the mouth for something to claim as my own, would be proud. I have built a career that is not just surviving but growing and evolving. I am not stagnant. I am always pushing forward, always becoming more than I was yesterday–in an altruistic way, in a spiritual way, in an achievement way.

Yet, with every milestone I reach, I feel the presence of something else: a quiet, melancholy sweetness that clouds my achievements. The person who once longed for this life—who I was before I became this—no longer exists. And there is grief in that.

Who I was is gone.

Still from Past Lives

She was someone entirely different: hungry for a new life, tangled up in love, uncertainty, and raw emotion. She was constantly questioning, constantly searching. She was reckless and curious, caught up in the beauty of possibility. She loved deeply, even when it hurt. Relationships were her lifeline, and dreams of a career were just that. Just dreams. And now? She has been put out to pasture, left behind in the pursuit of something greater.

Things were new then; things are expected now. There’s a freedom in having less to lose, but there’s a security in having new views to protect the life you have now. Life is fun when it’s constantly changing. Life is exciting when the people you surround yourself with build your life’s meaning. But life can only be that way for so long.

Still from Sound of Metal

And I wonder, can you ever get that back? Can you ever truly return to the version of yourself that existed before ambition took over? Before success reshaped you?

I don’t think you can.

I think once you cross a certain threshold, the past versions of yourself become just that—versions. Not accessible, not tangible, only remembered. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe growing into the person you once dreamed of being means you have to mourn the one who got you there.

Still from La La Land

But this isn’t just my story. This is the story of a generation raised on ambition. We were told we could be anything, that we should chase everything. In an era of amplified dreams in a society that doesn’t just encourage success but makes it feel necessary for survival, social media turned our lives into brands and our choices into content. The stakes became higher, the lines between personal and professional blurred. And in that constant pursuit, many lose something—ourselves, our spontaneity, the simple joy of being without documenting, without striving. We traded uncertainty for stability, but in doing so, we may have also lost the magic of not knowing what comes next. 

A career with stakes and that relentless pursuit of utter success will inhabit every corner of your being. It will fill every hour. It will occupy your every thought. You are your career. You are a brand. Your image is your potential for success. Of course, there is authenticity and power in this. But you can only afford to be authentic once you’ve made it, and in that, you’re no longer just you. People want to know your thoughts and feelings; they want to own your stories. Your experiences become something to capitalize on. Something to share. And when you share so much, it’s difficult because people feel they know you—and they don’t. Because they know me, a portion of me, now. But they don’t know the me that was. And inevitably, the me that was built the me that is now. 

Still from Past Lives

I am not the only one who feels this shift. We are living in an era where identity is constantly under construction. Our timelines are filled with rebrands, reinventions, and carefully curated evolutions of self. And while there is beauty in growth, there is also something undeniably tragic about the fact that we must always be aware of how we are perceived. There is no room for true candidness, for real uncertainty, for raw, unfiltered existence. “That just wouldn’t be good for the brand.” We are expected to have answers, to package our transformations into digestible narratives. To explain our losses as if they were lessons. To make sense of our past selves instead of just allowing them to be. 

All this to say: What happens when the hunger fades? When the pursuit becomes the new normal? If there is comfort in the monotony of striving, what exists beyond it?

What I do know is that who I was and who I am are two people separated by time, by effort, by sacrifice. And somewhere in between them is the truth of who I’m becoming next. And, perhaps, that is the only version of myself I will ever have access to again.

Still from Aftersun