From Nobody to Somebody

It perched on the mantelpiece, aloof, self-assured, and provocative. A seemingly harmless rectangle of card bearing its messages in sophisticated font and branding colours. Yet I felt the thud of my heart dropping to the floor each time I glanced in its direction. Too ashamed to respond, yet too frightened not to, I allowed the entire business of the invitation to consume me.

In reality, no rectangular card sat on a mantelpiece; no constant visual reminder in my living room. It was digital — Facebook, to be precise. The innocuous words — you have been invited — were like a petrifying poison that surged through my veins, alien, and unsettling. And up went the invitation, onto the metaphorical mantelpiece for later. I needed time to process this.

How easy it is to hold a flawed narrative about who you are and what you do

How could an invitation to a reunion have caused such an opening of deeply disguised wounds? The Pandora’s box of wrong turns, missed opportunities, lack of self-awareness and confidence, oh and guilt and shame and self-blame and everything, all spilt out forming a veil of ice on the surrounding ground, ready to crack. The familiar security I had built and relied on felt precarious now. Exposed, I had nowhere to tread.

We are all just actors trying to control and manage our public image, we act based on how others might see us.

Erving Goffman 1959

Could I navigate this messy crowd baying for my execution? I wondered whether I was alone. I considered whether anyone else felt like a new flower bud when it struggles to enter the world but is too late, because all the other buds have blossomed and made their mark? Except no one will ask, “what kind of flower will you be when you grow up?” because we are already grown-up; by now, we should have taken on the semblance of the flower that we were meant to be.

So, instead, they will ask, “what kind of flower are you?” Unaware that a well-intentioned, friendly inquiry could summon dark clouds of fragility and self-reproach? One question is all it would take to shatter my protective shield and sense of self.

“What do you do then?”

“What do YOU do then?”

“WHAT do you do then?”

“What DO you do then?”

Silence. “Well, I…”

Following an awkward grimace, I would try to make sense of this question and ponder on it. What would I say had I posed that question to myself whilst no one was listening? Would I explain that I was still navigating the question of identity confusion and that life had somehow obliterated me from its agenda? Or had it?

How reframing your perspective alters the reality of the story

If I were to change my narrative, reframe my story, and reflect, would it go something like this:

“Well, I am a write whose path has been long and overgrown with nettles and brambles, and later, with patches of soft moss and dewy grass. I have recently rediscovered the joy of creating through pictures and words.

This was a joy I nurtured in childhood, but somehow discarded, as I followed paths that were not mine to tread. There could have been reasons; there could have been blame; there could simply have been life.

I have been raising a family, and my children tell me they love me. I have borne the heartache of terrible things happening to those I love the most. I have battled with self-doubt and lack of confidence, but I am proud of the family that I have helped to create and support. I am grateful for the friendships I have built and the opportunities that I have embraced in my own dishevelled way. The support of people who love me empowers me.

I am excited about new determination bursting from the seams of my confinement, and I embrace the things that I am learning with vigour and enthusiasm. I read, write, learn about writing, and take pictures. I still look after and look out for my children and husband. I have neither energy, nor mental capacity for more, but this is enough. I am enough. And did I mention, I write.”

These are merely buds, but they will flower in their own time; that time is approaching. The fear in my veins has been shifting whilst optimism, gratitude, and purpose take their place on the mantelpiece.

The invitation? I accepted wholeheartedly. I accepted the invitation to shower myself with kindness, positivity, and joy. I accepted the invitation to gift myself with patience and empathy. I accepted the invitation to kick my own butt and write more. I accepted the invitation to revel in the excitement of new ventures and to share my journey with old friends. Finally, I learned to be mindful before asking anyone, what do you do?

How clues from your past are keys to your future

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Asked just about every adult who first met me as a child. Depending on the day, my age, or which way the wind was blowing, my answers were consistent only in their resolution and finality.

“I want to be Little Red Riding Hood,” I announced one day. But mostly, my answer would be “a dancer”, “a maker of things”, “an artist”, or “a writer of stories.” This last one was a trick answer because of course, I was already a writer.

I made little notebooks from scraps of paper and decorated them with drawings of flowers, fairies, and elaborate swirls. I wrote with ease and never questioned my stories, nor did I need any validation. I didn’t care whether anyone liked them, because I wrote them for pure joy; I wrote them for myself. I fantasised that in the distant future, someone would find my scribblings and find them fascinating.

Over time, fiction merged with fact as the notebooks transformed into diaries filled with teenage angst, confusion and longing. At times, anger manifested itself as random choice words scrawled over the page in various directions and fonts. Neither flowers nor fairies accompanied them this time. Instead, oversized exclamation marks and seething swirls of rage may have screamed from my pen. Yet I loved it best when answers graced the pages.

How you lose your identity if you follow the crowd

When I grew up, I never added flowers to the rage and sadness of those random words. My dreams had somehow eluded me, and I pursued a life of mere survival, but with little resonance. When I was in my thirties, I felt like I’d missed the boat. I watched others climbing career ladders and wondered why, despite having performed well academically, did I never really succeed? I imagined this was because I followed paths that were not mine to tread. I lived a life of doubting myself and was queen of imposter syndrome before the phrase was invented.

Lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, expectations of others, fear of comparison, and many other factors have played their part. However, I don’t look to the past for anyone or anything to blame; I look inside myself; I take ownership of myself. No one assigned me my identity at birth, and it is up to me to develop it. An article on Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development states:

… the developmental stages and formation of identity is an ever-evolving process, as opposed to a rigid concrete system

Gabriel A. Orenstein; Lindsay Lewis

When you believe you made the wrong decisions in life

As my confidence lurked somewhere in the shadows, and life confirmed my mediocrity, I reached a point of pause. I could internalise the narrative that there was something wrong with me, or I could change my story.

I picked up my pen — a Lamy, a pot of ink — blue-black of course, and a fine notebook of handmade paper. I began to write again. My fingers curled around my pen as my stories trickled from my head, through my arm, and down my pen; into the welcoming arms of open blank pages. And this was where my story began.

I reckoned there must be others too, who feel as if they are living in a limbo of lost opportunities and little or no future. Today, I want to challenge such perceptions because our well-being depends on it.

My mantra now is to breathe in life and exhale stories, and to impress upon everyone who thinks it is too late to follow their curiosities, that it is never too late — no one should be left behind. Age often stands guard like an over-zealous bouncer, keeping us from reaching our potential, rediscovering ourselves, and staying curious. I now realise that being further along the road of adulthood is not an end, but a fresh start. With age comes a carnival of knowledge, experience, and lessons learned.

Why I say thank you for the words

I know I am showing my age with this cultural reference, but I thank writing for teaching me valuable lessons. I have written out my anxieties, dilemmas, and mistakes in my journals. I have bled my self-esteem over more blank pages than you could wallpaper Buckingham Palace with. I have played with similes and mixed-up metaphors until my eyes glazed over and I forgot to eat. Sometimes, a story would weave its way into my head, and I would write it.

Whilst I wondered what I should do, ironically, I was already doing it, just not out loud and certainly not on purpose.

Writing brought me peace, solace, clarity, and joy. It was the only activity that I turned to because the page — or screen — was a judgement-free zone; a listening ear that never interrupted or invalidated me. Sometimes the journal pages curled at the corners with a self-congratulatory smile as glimmers of poetry or genuine insights emerged.

Writing has been my saviour ever since I could form words, but it wasn’t until I realised, I could make it a more prominent part of my life that it saved my life. Whatever ignites that tiny flame that flickers inside you, acknowledge it, feel it, and grow it. This is not about a job or career; it is about sparking that inner joy that will enhance everything else you choose or must do. It will find its way. I am an introvert on the outside, but I didn’t need my inner person to be an introvert too. I had to unleash her so that I could have an identity, be someone. I was good at dreaming of pretty pictures and stories of magical perfection. And whilst I wondered what I should do, ironically, I was already doing it, just not ‘out loud’ and certainly not on purpose.

I urge you to consider that the everyday white noise could be your future; don’t ignore it as I did, don’t take it for granted. Dance to your own tune, not the noise that others are making. I am learning this later than I would have liked, but some insights are worth waiting for. The lesson is that it is never too late to learn, to prioritise your interests, and ultimately to change your life.