Let me explain. There is much more to a person, to me, than what you see.
Of course, I never shared everything about myself with everyone I met because firstly, who has the time, and secondly not everyone deserved to know. Therefore, my outward appearance is what I would be judged on. There were several things people liked to comment on about me, the main three being my skin, my weight and my weirdness.
Yes I’m weird, but not in a weird way… you get me?
Anyway. Throughout secondary school people would just love to bring up my bad skin, the redness of my cheeks, or the small size that I am.
College was another barrel of laughs. Apparently these days your career goal is now something people like to pick apart. Making the decision to revise for exams was boring and going out was deemed a better choice. I could not help but wonder why people were so invested in other people’s decisions. I’ve always lived by the phrase “work in silence, let success be the noise” and I stuck to my guns no matter what comments people wanted to make.
It is no secret to those who know me that I am a big complex ball of stress.
Like, really big and really complex. I like to think I'm not sensitive, just highly susceptible to feeling a lot.
It just sounds better. I feel everything strongly. I am very easily overwhelmed, and I am very good at working myself into a frenzy. I like normal. I like calm and order.
So needless to say, when life doesn't feel calm and orderly, my leg will jiggle non-stop.
I felt especially proud on results day when I came out with high grades and a place at Cardiff University, it made everything worthwhile.
Especially considering everything I went through during the past few years.
Not to be dramatic but they were rough.
My gran was ill. Elderly people do become frail but it is harder when your gran is literally your best friend since day one. She began to lose her sight and subsequently this led to falls. I have lost count of the number of ambulances we had to call.
Mum had to one up us all and get pneumonia, swine flu and avian flu all at once. Intensive care isn't the place you want to spend your Easter holiday.
To this day I am still in awe of the people who came to our aid, driving me to hospital visits or cooking me dinner, the doctors that worked day and night to keep my mum well.
Hospitals became a second home, we knew them like the back of our hands.
We soon found ourselves asking which wards we hadn't visited.
Trying to revise for exams, complete a DofE gold expedition and look after everyone was hard.I used to think life was out to get me, but there is always another story that is yet to be told and always something to be thankful for. A roof over my head, food and friends, if you have that life can’t be half bad.
After piecing myself back together, my world flipped inside out once more. Worst thing was it’s during my final year at university...and just before Christmas. Can we get an Amen for perfect timing? I spent days not knowing where to turn, doubting everything and feeling an immense amount of pain.
This most recent flurry of worry is what motivated me to write this.
The point is…
We are not a sad story.
I could write pages about everything that has ever hurt me, but what would that achieve? I have met people who have survived cancers, car crashes, abuse, multiple organ transplants and not a single one of them was anything but thankful to be alive. When will people really understand that we never know what someone else is going through?
We shouldn’t wait until we know someone’s backstory before we decide to be nice to them, be nice anyway regardless of the life that person has.
After a turbulent time recently I started showing people how I felt. How I really felt. I spent hours catching up with people on the phone, accepted hugs and cried into people's shoulders. I sat on the bathroom floor with a friend and let everything out. I spoke out loud every tangled thought I had in my head and let people unwind them like Christmas lights that had been tucked in the attic all year. I told everyone who needed to know and I accepted their help instead of insisting I was fine.
That was a big deal for me, I am rather stubborn and prefer to do things on my own. So I started switching the negative words for encouraging ones : Stubborn = Resilient. Anxious = Passionate enough to want things to go right.
I was blown away by the kindness people have in their hearts, from hours spent talking, to people buying me cakes in coffee shops “just because”...bit by bit my world became a bit warmer. I promise to keep seeking that warmth but to never burn myself again.
It sucks we have to break in order to shine, but that just means I am more glowstick than human and I rather like the sound of that.
Perhaps we have to go through something which breaks us in order to understand who we really are inside. It’s my third year of uni and I have finally realised - I don’t care what you think. You can say whatever you like to me or about me, I will nod and smile along but I will not care. I truly mean it when I say that if something isn’t going to matter to me in a year I will no longer let it bother me for more than a day, if that.
I cannot afford to be anything less than happy, motivated and successful. I’m using my nervous energy to keep me going, because there is a soul crushing hope things will get better if I am this afraid of missing them. It is so easy to get caught up in the past, to hold our sad stories close and never move on from them.
I’ve learnt that whatever hurt me in the past is no longer hurting me in the present. It happened, but it's not happening now. Our stories are a part of us but they do not define us. We can choose to move on, recover, start again. I decide to forgive everything. Anything that ever hurt me and anyone who made me sad.
It's true, "the only way out of this labyrinth of suffering is to forgive". And so, to be truly happy I forgive it all. I suggest you do to. Come new years and everyone is so focused on the past, how this year has hurt them or hindered them. Instead, I suggest we look forward. We are leaving a year of struggling behind and entering one that has been untouched, one that we can do what we please with.
Start a grateful journey, think of all the things 2019 taught you and what you’ll do with them in 2020. New year's resolutions aren’t my cup of tea, but a new year and decade is the perfect reason to make big or small changes. Get out of the labyrinth, forgive 2019 for its hardship.
Don’t start another year with last years problems. We are the one thing in life we can control.
We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control where we go from there.
Cover your wall in deep quotes and reminders that hold you up when you feel a bad day coming on. I have hundreds of suggestions if you ever need some. The people sat in front of me right now think I am great so why does someone the other side of a screen have any input into my worth? Why focus on the bad? Why should I give someone I don’t know or never see the time to try and bring me down. Why should I run over the possibilities, hold on to imagined situations?
What others think of me does not define me. By no means am I perfect. I have flaws, as do we all. But I am learning to sit with them and learn from them. I can’t change the past but I can apologise, I can change and I can move forward. I can try and be the best person I can be, and hope that others see good in me too.
I am more than what you think.
I am kind, I am caring and I am loyal.
I am trying my best to help myself and others.
I am small but I can knock you out with my new boxing gloves, and kick your ass at ballet. I am learning that being proud and loving yourself is not a bad thing.
I am strong. I am a holder of a Gold DofE badge for hiking across mountains in torrential rain.
I am a DofE wales ambassador who worked in the palace, has delivered inspiring speeches and become a powerful public speaker.
I am the housemate that accidentally gives everyone a fright because I’m so light footed.
I run this foundation and I listen to people who want to share their story.
I am working hard at my goals, I am making this foundation a worthy cause and it is only going to grow.
I am reading and writing and one day you’ll read my books in coffee shops with hot tea and even hotter lovers.
I am learning that I cannot fix everything but nobody can.
I am learning that I do not need someone to love in order to have a purpose. I need only love myself.
I am learning that being happy for me is enough, I don’t have to share it with someone to make it valid.
I am learning that mistakes are worth listening to, no matter how painful and horrible, you have to learn and run with the knowledge.
Of course I have days where I get worked up, getting stressed by change. Just last week I got so stressed booking a train ticket I nearly cried, I'm still learning to chill out and that things going wrong are NOT the end of the world. Honestly you would laugh at some of the things that worry me...but now I laugh too. I am surprised by my own strength and it’s time I accepted that I AM strong, I AM brave, I will be just fine.
Sometimes I swear instead of laughing but it works just as well.
I have faith in who I am. I do not need others to validate me or bring me down.
I will wear patchwork dungarees, dye my hair and read my books until I write one of my own.
I will not let bad words blind me to the good words.
I'm writing this for myself.
For those who want to hear they are not alone, who want to relate to someone and know the way they feel is okay.
I once read a book that said everyone has one event, one time in their life when everything falls apart. It happens, but everything that follows is what matters, is what counts. I’ve had my falling apart and I am ready for the goodness to come.
I am so much more than what you think. You could never define me.