Eventually we all become paperwork.
Your birth certificate was typed up shortly your arrival and still serves as flimsy proof you are you. The fortunate among us get several good decades animating their flesh vessels before checking out. When you expire your body is exchanged for a death certificate.
That paper is the flimsy proof you were you. Two documents from start to finish. Maybe you were conceived during the era of sonograms and there's an aging grainy photo of you somewhere simmering in utero. Technically, a photo - but it counts. Pre-paperwork paperwork.
Everything in between those two pages is your story.