6th January
2013
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its
best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest
battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. e.e. cummings,
1955
Always check Facebook first
and I’ve had an email from a friend, who has been in and out of my life on and
off since school, we’ve never been ‘close’ friends but pals all the same. I’ve just realised, this lady has known me
for a good thirty years, probably longer than anyone else in my life now that
isn’t actually related. We were in the
same year at school, we worked together in our early twenties and now we have
met again through Facebook and Weight Watchers.
Anyway without revealing the content
of the message, one thing she said was, “You’re so sorted Bev, I know it’s
not always roses but you’ve got it sussed.”
So as I made my cup of tea, I thought about this, that’s when I realised
how long I’d known her and how much I’ve changed. Oh dear when I was at school, I was so angry,
probably angry with the universe for making me ill, being different in school
isn’t good, standing out when you want to fit in ;(. Then I thought about when we worked together,
I was a different kind of angry, cold almost, a bit stiff, I was trying to fit
in a world, well that I just didn’t! It
was me at all, I wasn’t a party animal, wild one, I wasn’t a business lady
either – none of it was me and I was uncomfortable, but I tried to fit in
again.
As I sit here now, I’m content because I’ve stopped trying to fit it, I
decided to be me, and see what happened, I’m not even sure if it was a conscious
decision. My last unhappy memory of
trying to be someone else would be a conference I’d organised for a few
hundred, the only help I had was from a fresh out of uni graduate who was
absolutely loving her new role, I on the other hand was not. I was fine with all the organising side of it;
it was the pretentiousness that I wasn’t good with. That weekend I went on a ‘personal development
weekend’, I’d done a few of these, I was trying to figure out who I was and
what I wanted from life because I just didn’t feel like I’d found it. A lot of
tears were shed that weekend as I told them I hated my job and the job I wanted
to do (Weight Watcher leader) I didn’t know if I could make enough money to pay
my mortgage and all my bills. Everyone
had advise for me as you can imagine, but realism kept telling me I only had
two meetings and wasn’t guaranteed anymore and two meetings would not even feed
up let alone pay the bills. But the
organiser of the weekend eventually got a bit angry with me because he couldn’t
talk me round; I was being way to logical for his liking so he started ‘attacking’
me almost, only verbally but making me feel threatened. It was the best thing anyone could have done,
he asked me what would happen if I didn’t earn enough money being a Weight
Watcher leader, and whatever I answered, he barked, “And then what!?” It got a bit ridiculous, until I was saying,
I’ll be homeless and hungry etc, and it went on for a while but suddenly the
light bulb went on in my head. I
realised what he was doing, he’d made me realise there is NOTHING I can’t deal
with, NOTHING I can’t sort if only I’m brave enough to try! So that’s what I did.
I came home and chatted with mom, told her everything, said how I was
worried because I wanted to keep her in the lifestyle she’d got used to, at
which she laughed and said, I’d rather be hungry and see you happy than the
opposite. The next day I handed my
notice in on a job with a good wage, a pension and a company car
allowance! Best move ever!
Times were tight for a while, especially as I had a huge credit card bill I
was trying to get under control (you spend too much money when you’re unhappy
to try and get happy – it doesn’t work!), I used to go bargain hunting in
supermarkets and my new mantra became, “do you need? If so is it the cheapest? If you don’t need it and just want it – put it
back!”
So here I sit today, me, the real me, I’m still a bit of a complex character,
I get up and be the me I want to be each day, sometimes that ‘me’ is a
different version of the usual me. My
close friends laugh because they realise there are multiple versions of
Beverley and the closer you get to me the more of them you see. No I’m not schizophrenic ;-) I’m just
multi-faceted and by embracing all parts of my personality and going with how I
feel on any given day, I’ve found a balance, a balance I absolutely love.
I do wish, ‘tidy Bev’ would make an appearance though cos my house really
could do with a sort out, but I’m just not feeling the cleaning vibe at all, ‘sod
it Bev’ is firmly in-situ for the foreseeable I think. Hey ho, I know after years of being me that
it all gets sorted in the end, I have cycles and I go with the flow, it’s the
only way to live, have you ever watched the Salmon trying to swim up a
waterfall, way too difficult! Not impossible
of course, but I’ll leave that to those who really want to fight the tide, me I
stopped trying to fight my natural version of me, I’m embracing the real me and
it’s working out.
Have a lovely day whatever you’re doing. xx
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