I think I have always been quick to latch on to the things that seem the most romantic - my life as a Bronte heroine, the film which seems to be telling the story of a character so much like myself, the song that I could have written had I only found the words. To a romantic, idealist dreamer, the world is just the setting for the epic of your own life. An egocentric little narrative in which everyone else is just playing a part in your story. As a child I took this notion as far as to imagine a soundtrack to certain events as they unraveled. I remember sitting in the car, watching scenery fly by, and imagining a shot of me looking pensive with something like this playing in the background - blocking out the sounds of real life. Then I woke up from this daydream and realised that my life is my life. Not a film, not a great love story, not a timeless novel.
Sometimes I wonder how much unrealistic expectations have shaped who I am now. Expectations and approval have pretty much dictated every breath I have taken since I was old enough to understand what it was. I told someone recently that I was a chameleon. I am. In fact,it is the only thing I can say with any certainty about my personality - that I adapt it to suit the time, place, or person to which I am nearest.
I do it here with my writing. The way I set up my blog, the themes I choose. I don't write completely for myself anymore - I write so that people will read it. The content is true, but it's filtered - sometimes sugared or watered down, topics carefully edited in case people are tired to listening to the same shit from me over and over again. If I wrote this just for me, the last few months would have been filled with blogs about my miscarriage, not just passing references. I wouldn't write about trying to be more cheery or muddling through, I would write about being angry and fucking fed up. But I am too afraid of sounding like I am whining, too afraid that no one will read it and tell me what to think next. Ask me about the state of the world, about my research, about other people - I am clever, thoughtful and analytical. When it comes to the topic of myself I just can't seem to think independently. I need you to tell me the answer. Fucking hell, I am exhausted from being like this. The worst part of self-awareness is knowing how little control you have over those things of which you are aware. I feel weak, insecure, lonely, unoriginal - typical. And wouldn't that just be the worst thing to be ? Typical. I have fought my whole life against being typical. Always have to be exceptional, better, the best. It has served me well to some extent. I am successful, on track for a good life.
At least I think it's a good life. One of those 'having it all' kind of lives. You know the kind of lives I'm talking about, where I have the great job and the big house and the husband that everyone likes and the well-behaved, good-looking kids and the summer holidays in the south of France. It's the kind of life I have always wanted. I think. Is it? Or has this other life escaped me? That one where I travel around the world, write poetry and play music, have a rootless non-conformist existence. I don't even remember which one I wanted anymore. Which one is me and which one is someone else. I can't have both - I missed that boat the day I decided 26 was a good age to get married and buy a big house which would eat every penny I earn for the next 35 years. And I certainly can't have that life and a child - and having a child is one of the only things I feel certain I want, have always wanted.
In the back of my address book I scribbled a note to myself nearly eight years ago.
Looking inside myself
I am blinded
by the image of what I might have been
if I had just been
just a little less like me.
All this time later here I am, feeling exactly the same. My adaptability is a double-edged sword, making available to me so many opportunities and strengths yet burdening me with a blurred image of self. It's like a person who tells a lie when they are a child and continues to tell it. Eventually it just becomes the truth. How much of me started out as a lie? How much of what my husband loves, what my friends admire, what my parents are proud of began as fabrication?
Was I ever myself at all?
4 comments:
As I said before, so much to think about - I'll just have to pick out a few things at random! I think we're all a mass of contradictions/ opposites, and we just have to try and reconcile them as best as we can while making the most of the positive, creative bits (and learning from the negative bits!).
I recognise a lot of that in myself - expectations and approval, adaptability, weakness and insecurity, wanting to be exceptional. I'm obsessed with being exceptional, which makes life difficult. I'm sure things would be much easier if I were mindlessly conventional!
I realise more and more it's no good expecting other people to give me the answers to my own needs, because either they won't or they're ignorant or they get me all wrong. I just have to have faith in my own judgment of what's good for me and what isn't.
As for lifestyle, I think the trick is to have a life that's comfortable and settled enough to give a sense of security while also seizing opportunities for self-expression and self-discovery.
And as for blog-vetting, I'm sure we all do that. A constant toss-up between spilling everything out and creating a certain image. And I've always written for my audience rather than myself, I want people to be interested enough to read it and make comments.
Goodness, this comment's turning into an essay, think I'd better stop! But I just love reading your posts, vetted or not!
Thank you for your honesty. Your courage to be honest. Stiving for it. It has so much power and potential.
I think there is something very deeply human in what you say about the earliest fabrications. About the birthing of a false self in the primordial, pre-linguistic days. There is an archaeology of deceptions in most of our lives, desperately trying to hide behind roles and words. There is nothing wrong with this...in that i think it is what we do as stuggling human beings. However, it is good to make the brave steps to discovering what those deceptions and facades were trying to facilitate, or what they were trying to protect in the first place.
My mother is going through this process, and she is 65. Her entire marriage was a sham, built on avoiding the other reality. It is never to late to discover the truer version of ourselves. never too late.
and i also think you touched on the theme, which i also think is common to most of humanity...which is the fear, that if we were discovered as we truly are, we would not be loveable. Some deep inherent belief that something essential to who we are, is something to be ashamed of, something to feel guilty about. We live in smokescreens because we are terrified that we will be seen naked and vulnerable, as we are....and that in that state...we will not be acceptable.
Thank you for your bravery, your courage.
May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
wow...let me just say that THAT was one of those things I've thought I could've written, if I could've only found the words. Thank you for giving such an eloquent, honest voice to it.
Nick,
Being mindlessly conventional...something that frustrates me so much in other people, yet I quietly yearn for it sometimes! I hope someday soon I find the courage to stop relying so much on the opinions of others as you seem to have done. And thank you again for your loyal readership. It helps with the inspiration to keep writing.
Raindog,
The reference to your mother both comforts and frightens me...
I am genuinely humbled by your praise of my honesty. Thank you.
Alice,
It blows me away to think that something I thought was so personal and distinctive is something you can strongly relate to. Perhaps we would not all feel so alone if we were more honest about ourselves with each other.
Thanks for stopping by.
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