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?
