Growth – May 2020

Due to recent mindset shifts and a subtle personal transformation that I believe is taking place, certain good things are happening which I am very grateful for.

I am literally just home from a day spent with two of my best friends on the seafront (promenade) of my town. Besides having fun being our usual weird selves together, getting coffee and enjoying the sun, there was something else which made it an awesome day.

I kept running into people I knew while out and about, as you do in your hometown. It was so nice to stop and chat with people whom I have not seen in over a year. Not only was it nice to see people, but it has never felt so fine to be myself. Running into old school friends is usually something that causes one to revert back into the same person you were when you knew them. We all act a different way around different people, using past experiences of yourself with them as a reference. And yet today I didn’t totally let that happen. Time has passed now. Things have happened. There has been some space. So today when I talked to people I was just light and happy. I didn’t adopt any of the old feelings of… for example jealously, shyness, garishness or clumsiness. I really just felt lighter. And I think it showed.

I have had an unusual relationship with my hometown for the last few years. Now I am finally understanding the importance of loving this place.

Home, contrary to what the modern person would say, is not just where the heart is. While your family may be the most important aspect of home, there is more to it. It is truly wonderful to go for a walk and even if you are alone, knowing that you aren’t, because there will be familar faces you smile at and always people you know to run into and chat to. We live in a wider sense of community, and feeling that, makes us feel more whole.

There is also the connection to the land and the scenery. I cherish the long tree-lined avenue of the park, the grassy promenade by the sea, the view of the iconic red-and-white towers, the wooden bridge jutting out into the sea. I live in a truly wonderful place. I guess it is easier to realise that when the sun and the people come out!

Lastly, your hometown is a tapestry of memories and stories. You walk around and can see your past self in the various places you pass. You pass one tree in the park and at once see the tree where you fell out of age 7 and grazed your arm, the tree you sat under age 10 eating sugary jellies with classmates, the tree where you had your first kiss age 13… Most of your life has been lived on these streets and these locations. It is a map of you. To continue walking there is to continue down along a continuous path, where past, present and future are all connected.

There is wholeness to that, beauty.

These past years have been years of estrangement from my peers, myself and my sense of place. They have been peppered with moments of despair, of alienation, of feeling ugly, lost and alone. I have been living in my head instead of living in the world. Drowning in my own endless gurgle of inner sludge, and now I feel I am finally rising to the surface for that glorious gulp of air. Finally resuming my ‘normality’. Not to say I am normal or even the same person I was when I was fourteen. But that I am altogether new and now completely comfortable with who I am. I have freed up a lot of internal space to make room for other people.

I would say that I am more confident and self-loving now. But those words don’t capture the truth of it. Confidence, in my eyes, is nothing to do with bravery or bravado. Nor is it something you build, it is not a muscle or a skill, it is quite the opposite. Confidence will shine through when you remove all the barriers and obstacles, when you clear away the mould and mildew of your mind. Do a spring clean in your house and you will feel more inclined and happier to invite in guests. Do the same spring clean on your mind and you will naturally open the doors to all kinds of social encounters.

To clarify, the kind of confidence I am talking about is not about standing up on a stage and giving a speech in front of thousands of people. That is an action that would require a certain degree of skill and preparation. No amount of self-love is going to help you remember your lines. The confidence I am talking about is the one you use in daily life, in the moments without tasks. It is walking down the street without a shred of anxiety or insecurity. It is talking to people without feeling like you are annoying them. And if you do annoy them, the revelations doesn’t crush you – you can make ammends and skip forth on your merry way.

So these days I feel more confident, more open, more friendly. It is a new relationship to myself and to the world and it is unfolding into something truly magical.

When I compare how I feel now to how I was just ten months ago, I am shocked. I have a distinct memory of one morning in September, just after I had come back from travelling. It was grey, cloudy day. Everything appeared to be smaller and more cramped. Like I had been placed into a doll’s house world instead of the real one. I looked and felt ugly. Wearing some dirty black leggings and a hoodie. I didn’t feel happy to be seen or recognised. I was afraid I would be. It felt wrong to be there. I felt as if this place belonged to a different era of my memory and judged myself for not having moved on to somewhere ‘greater’. It was itchy. I didn’t know what I would be doing with my life, but I was still resentful of everyone and everything in the world. Everything was wrong. Climate change is coming. Bastards are in power. The teenagers are all self-obsessed consumerists. What hope is there?

Oh dear. How much hatred swelled in those veins, these veins. It has taken ten months to let go of these feelings. While I began telling myself there is no point living without hope, It is only now I really mean it. It has sunk in.

The intricacies of what has changed within, is something I will discuss another day.

So much has changed since then. The world is a warmer place. The sun is rising.