You Are Allowed To Do Things Differently

‘That’ll look good on your CV.’

One of my least favourite things to hear, this little saying sends shivers down my spine and a look of discomfort onto my face.It’s packed, I feel, with heaviness. The overarching double sheet of A4 paper, dominating your life and condensing it into x amount of words on the various experiences of your life. The highlights, the lowlights, written there starkly in a formal font, black and white begging for approval from someone who has no right to judge your life. 

I realise that it’s a seemingly innocent statement - but what about when things don’t look good on the CV? What then? I’ve had numerous gaps in my employment history because of hospital admissions. I’ve left jobs after three weeks because they were wrong. My ‘career’ hasn’t really ever got going - the false starts still haunt me, because they were such an ill fit. As I grow older, I’m coming to the conclusion it’s all okay. Would I rather have a linear job, a solid 40 years of service in one environment or a life scattered around, dipping my toes into various worlds of work? I’m in no way saying there is anything wrong with sticking to a certain job or career - there’s a lot to be said for that element of stability in your life. Don’t quit your day job just yet! I would, however, like to not be thought of as less because I haven’t chosen that path. It’s okay to flit between jobs, experiencing different things and feel the quaky uncertainty of where your next pay is coming from. 

It may be a generational thing, but the notion that you should do things because they’ll look good on paper is not a reason to do them! Do it for the thrill, the fun, the education! There isn’t enough time to pass on the experiences you may love for fear that it won’t fit into your curriculum vitae. It might be worth saying, I also think it’s a control mechanism to deter people from embarking on hedonistic adventures. It instills fear into us that one day we’ll be rejected from our dream job because of that summer spent in Thailand/America/destination of choice. The condensed version of your life shouldn’t fill you with impending doom (like it does me) - it isn’t a reflection of the true experiences you’ve had and the life you’ve lived, and that’s my trouble with it.  We have to be able to fuck up, to chop and change, leave jobs that make us miserable without the fear it’s a stain on us.

So the next time someone tells you that your next adventure will look good on your CV, smile and know that there’s far more value to your life experiences than being able to pop them on your bloody CV when they’re complete.

I Wonder What I Could Have Done with all of the Time I Wasted Wondering if I Was Good Enough, Pretty Enough to Exist.

Pick, pick, pick. All you do for me, and all you allow me to do – I will still tear you apart every day. I prod and poke you; I would rip chunks from you if I could. I have pulled you apart to see what I’m made of. Nicks and freckles align over skin stretched tightly, little markings of a life lived. Stretch marks scattered here, there, almost everywhere. What does it matter? You are my home. You belong to me. Only you and I will truly know where we’ve been. We have dipped our ten toes into salty oceans, hot sandy dunes and trod upon dew drop blades of grass at dawn. We have kissed loved ones on the brow, on the cheek and ones we have loved all over. You let me do this. I know, I do know, how fortunate I am to have you. I apologise for tormenting you.  You bring the bully out of me – but it’s not your fault, it really isn’t. Something has gone very wrong along the way if I think you’re not good enough for me.  

I wish I could change the way I see myself. I wish I could remember that that is the true root of the problem; it isn’t what I actually look like. There would be flaws to find even if I were a dream version of myself. I have been slim. I have had long, beautiful red hair, blonde hair, brown hair. I’ve had smaller boobs, bigger boobs, a teeny waist and a face with cheekbones. These past versions of me were no happier than I am now, not really. But – they were more accepted and celebrated in society. I conformed to the idealistic western standards of beauty and didn’t feel the sting of judgement that I now do because I am overweight. I remind myself, daily, how fortunate I am to be happy and healthy. I know that when I look in the mirror, I shouldn’t feel disgust or shame. The language I use about myself shouldn’t be spiteful or malicious. I shouldn’t feel such hatred for what in the simplest terms is a shell to carry me through this life. However, there are days when I do. There are more days I do than I don’t. Isn’t that so wrong? It is so sad. I can’t even imagine the time I waste worrying, endlessly worrying about something as simple as the way I look.

I hope you know how beautiful you are. I hope I learn to tell myself the same, then believe it too. The shame I feel about my appearance endlessly impacts my mental health, and that alone is a reason to curb the bad habits and start to be kinder to myself. There are so many things worth worrying about, but our bodies and the way we see them should not be one of them.

“Tell your daughters how you love your body.
Tell them how they must love theirs.

Tell them to be proud of every bit of themselves—
from their tiger stripes to the soft flesh of their thighs,
whether there is a little of them or a lot,
whether freckles cover their face or not,
whether their curves are plentiful or slim,
whether their hair is thick, curly, straight, long or short.

Tell them how they inherited
their ancestors, souls in their smiles,
that their eyes carry countries
that breathed life into history,
that the swing of their hips
does not determine their destiny.

Tell them never to listen when bodies are critiqued.
Tell them every woman’s body is beautiful
because every woman’s soul is unique.” 
― Nikita Gill

Still I Think of Her When the Sun Goes Down. Never Goes Away, But it All Works Out…

The shock of the fall is one way to describe what it felt like to lose her. It was a swift, sudden, tablecloth whipped out from under plates piled high kind of motion. One moment she was there, the next, she had vanished. Except this wasn’t a magical trick designed to implore applaud – it was harsh, and brutal. The plates crashed from the table, you might say. I made promises to her, and when it mattered most, I let her down. I pushed too hard and now I’m slowly learning my lesson. I have been left to rethink each small comment, things that I thought insignificant and easy criticism over decades of love have fractured and fragmented the most important relationship I have ever found myself in outside of family bonds. She became family. The lazy days we spent playing scrabble, over and over we played scrabble – in her back garden with her uncle, in my front room as I “breathed too heavily” and distracted her, even on the plane to Spain – these are some of the favourite moments of my life. She has stood by me through hospital admissions, one time even figured out I had escaped, called every person close to me and made sure I was safe – even if from a distance. Even if, deep deep down I know this is for the best, I miss her incredibly. Every bloody day.

I hope she knows how I love her. I am so happy to have had a friend that meant so much to me that now I feel utterly numb without her; this pain must be a testament to how much I cared about us, because I can’t possibly feel this destroyed without it meaning something. It’s too much to bear. I go to call her, to tell her about my day and hear her voice of pure joy – and then I’m jolted back to this reality that she doesn’t care about my day anymore. Someone said to me, it is like she’s dead now. I was so struck by this, but it is. I have no choice. I can’t call her. I don’t get to hear her laugh anymore, make her laugh or have her laugh at me. I look at old photos of us and it truly hurts as though I’m mourning her. A world without her is something I never thought I’d face until one of us passed – so that person was maybe more right than they knew when they said it was like she had died. However bereft, life carries on. I’m so glad she is alive and well. It is just truly saddening that I don’t get to be a part of the wonder that was her anymore. We are anecdotal to each other now, relics of what we once had, and just a sweetheart friendship gone wrong.

Slowly, so slowly, I’m coming around again to the notion that I’m not rotten. It wasn’t entirely my fault this happened. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It is just one of the saddest stories of life that nothing lasts forever. I am glad I met her. Maybe our paths will cross again one day, but for now we navigate the treacherousness of our late twenties separately. I know it will be much harder without her, and I’m sorry not to have her in my life. Hopefully, and  hopeful – perhaps foolishly so – that it will all work out. Because eventually, one way or the other, it just does… But if you ever have any doubt I loved you. I did, I do and I always will. 

Wybie x