Remember Who You Are (A Mother-FXXXing Superstar!)

Growing up on an island, I learned that rivers change course slowly.
You don’t notice it day by day.
Then one morning you look up and realize the water isn’t where you left it.

Maybe people do too.

Somewhere along the way, we all start collecting expiration dates.
Not the kind printed on a can of Coke.
The kind whispered by family, friends, and the quiet voice in our own heads.

And somewhere in between, we slowly begin to wonder if the best version of ourselves has already happened.

Lewis Hamilton knows that feeling.
At 41, after years of people saying he was too old, too slow, or simply a marketing project in Ferrari red, he reminded everyone why he became a seven-time world champion in the first place.

Taylor Swift knows that feeling too.
People said she had abandoned her country roots.
That she had become too commercial.
Too big.
Too different.
Then came “I Knew It, I Knew You.”
The song isn’t really about another person.
It’s about recognizing something that was always there.

Elena Rybakina is living that story right now.
The grass season was supposed to be her season.
Instead, she arrived looking uncertain, out of rhythm, and far from the player everyone expected.

Sport has a cruel way of making confidence visible.
But confidence rarely disappears overnight.

Sometimes it simply gets buried beneath expectations, criticism, and self-doubt.

Maybe that’s true outside of sport too.
Because every now and then, life convinces us that we’ve become someone smaller than we used to be.
Maybe we haven’t.
Maybe we’ve just forgotten.

Sometimes the most important comeback isn’t winning another trophy.
It’s remembering who you are.

And with Wimbledon about to begin next Monday, I hope Elena Rybakina remembers that the world can make you forget who you are.
And I hope she – and we – remember who we are.

A mother-fxxxing superstar.