I find that my sense of personal identity comes from two things
1) my personal tastes (and to some extent my creativity because it expresses those tastes)
2) my childhood memories
My personal tastes are pretty well defined. I am not aware of them 'forming' so much as simply being. I don't decide what I like, I just Know. There are few cases where my tastes have changed significantly over the course of my life, and when I look at how they have changed I can see them more as a progression, naturally flowing out of the orriginals and not contradicting or replacing the orriginals, but simply being added to them. I feel a very strong sense of identity from these tastes and cannot immagine being myself and not liking or disliking certain things. I wouldn't be me anymore if I didn't like these things. Along with these strong tastes, I feel like I can't live out who I am unless I'm able to express those tastes through creative endeavors, like crafts or writing, or clothing. Because I can't live out my tastes to the fullest extent, I rely on focusing on the immagination of my inner world to provide a kind of home for myself where my inner self is fully expressed and in tune with the surroundings.
I find that it is very important to me that I have an internal sense of consistancy between my past self and my present self. I highly value the feeling of being the same person throughout my life, that is not seeing much internal change. While my circumstances may vary, my person remains a solid reliable consistant experience. It seems very important to me to have always known who I am, and to know that that doesn't change (at least not significantly). I really cherish my memories of my past and the nostalgic feelings that are conjured by various things, allowing me to relive past moments. I also tend to enjoy the same things over and over both because I like them as much now as I did then, and because they reinforce a connection with my past.
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