Becoming, Lucy

I feel as though I am seen as the person miles away from who I am.

I’m seen as someone who doesn’t question things, who copes, who doesn’t complain too much, who only shares her opinion when asked and knows when to stop sharing. Whether I’m seen as that person by design to protect myself from… I’m not sure. Rejection? Being misunderstood? Or maybe to protect the version of myself that is already loved. Because losing people around me from just being myself will only fuel the loneliness eating away at me.

Or maybe I am seen as that person because that is who I am. But if that is who I am, then why does it feel so wrong and so draining to perform as that person? I think habit has become identity; the line between the two has become blurred.

I’ve just never felt enough.

It’s funny because I walk around like the person I want to be when I’m by myself – head high, not giving a fuck, in my own world. Sometimes I’ll smile at strangers, catch their eye. I find a lot of people do look at me. So I’m either magnetic (this sounds so vain on my reread, good lord) or people have something to stare at (lol, help). I even interact with strangers when I’m by myself like the person I want to be – confident, chatty, and I feel completely like my weird self.

But bring in someone that knows me into the picture? I shrink, I hold back, I stutter over my words. Am I two different people or am I just scared of judgement from those that love me so I hide parts of myself on purpose?

I don’t know my answer. I’m sat here wondering if maybe that is what I learned to do.

I see the pattern when I look back at friends I used to keep. I’ve always been that girl who is friends with everyone – in school I was friends with people from every ‘clique’ (cringe and that’s a whole article in itself on cliques within school). But I started secondary school within what would be classed as the ‘popular’ group because my best friend at the time fell easily into that crowd. She was someone everyone wanted to be (especially me) – beautiful, kind, smart, funny, confident and able to hold a conversation with anyone. Now when I look back, I realised I was dimmed by her light (I don’t blame her), or maybe I allowed myself to be dulled by those circumstances.

I didn’t feel as though I fit into that crowd so I moved into another friendship group and once again, I never truly felt like myself. By the time I was in Year 10 (14/15 years old), I had a solid friendship group and friends within every friend group across my year group. I mean, I don’t think it was hard to have friends in every group – my year group was only small, 90 something students by the end of Year 11 – but there was definitely still cliques and divides across certain groups.

I lost friends when I left school because I ‘changed’… But what if those people were never meant to continue my story with me if they didn’t like who I really was? What if I’m not scared of being myself, but simply scared of losing people I thought would stick by me through it all?

Maybe that’s the issue. I’m still treating my adult life like school – like there are cliques to fit into and conform to but in reality you can still be loved without having a label plastered to your fucking forehead.

That feels like an easy answer though (again, what’s new?). All my issues started when I was trying to fit into society (as I knew it as a teenager) and now the reason I can’t seem to be who I want to be is because I’m too afraid to step out of the box myself and others have labelled me into, when humans aren’t that simple. Seriously, at this point just tell me to be quiet and stop trying to intellectualise everything.

Fear holds me back from everything. Why do I let fear run my life? Or rather, why do I let fear hold me back from life? If I knew that answer, I wouldn’t be here relying on writing out every thought that ever crosses my mind. Closing my laptop before I get angry at myself for being a stupid bitch. xoxoxo

I’ve come back to this now and I don’t know what to say. I’m annoyed at myself for trying to explain it away. I’m angry at myself for then letting that voice come into my mind and minimise what I am writing as I try to give myself acceptance to be who I want to be. I hide behind self-deprecation and I can currently hear myself giving myself some shit, (dramatic as fuck).

I can feel the exact moment I start shrinking myself and it’s embarrassing how automatic it is. As soon as I feel eyes on me, someone waiting for my opinion or when people go silent after I’ve just spoken it’s as though it flips a switch and my first thought is: ‘okay, time to turn your light off or redirect it to someone else so no one sees you’. Because god forbid someone sees me for who I actually am. They wouldn’t see what I try make myself believe I am, they would see everything I fear I am. A coward. A fraud. Unoriginal. Boring. No depth. No talent. Uninteresting.

They would be able to see me thinking twice before I speak, they would see the moment I disagree with someone but choose to stay quiet because I don’t want to upset them or have my opinion minimised. They would see the smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes when I laugh along to something I don’t actually find funny. They would see that I truly have nothing interesting to add to the conversation and if I try, it must be fake.

Or maybe, none of that is true and my fear isn’t being seen but that if I am, people will decide I am not worth choosing. At which point I can just feed myself some ‘glass half-full’ perspective and say they were never meant to be a part of my story until I believe it. But it wouldn’t rid the pain. It wouldn’t make the loss any easier. It would feed my self-worth narrative of never being enough and I’ll just repeat the same cycles again and again. Predictable. And still happening.