All I am not and will never be

It's OK to not be everything to everyone...

Oh, the pressure to be it all, do it all, have it all…it’s heavy, isn’t it?! I can quite literally feel the weight of the expectations that I place on myself to fit into that round hole, when I am very clearly a square peg with no inclination to try and play a role or fit a space that was never meant for me.

Find me under a blanket, engrossed in ACOTAR as if it’s 2008 and I’m a teenager reading Twilight for the first time

As I was drifting off to sleep a few nights ago, a phrase suddenly popped into my head: all I am not and will never be. I had to grab my phone from across the room and write it down; I couldn’t risk losing it to sleep, all but forgotten by morning. It was sparked by a conversation that James and I had had a few days before: I was talking about how I often feel a pressure to be or do certain things that I have been conditioned to believe are the optimum way of living, when that’s just not who I am.

Why can’t I just accept and celebrate my limitations, instead of berating myself for them? This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t challenge ourselves or try to move past the barriers that stop us from reaching our full potential; I’m just more interested in arriving at a place of radical acceptance of who we are, who we want to be, and who we might become that feels authentic to us, without external voices persuading us otherwise.

Consider this post your permission to radically accept and be proud of all that you are, and all that you are not.

I’ll go first. I am not a chill girl. Oh, how I wish that I could be relaxed, unbothered, cool and calm; but, alas, I am a panicker, a worrier, a fully paid up member of the Frazzled English Woman club (a term I learned from

Ella

’s latest post, which you absolutely must read). I will never be aloof, I will never not feel the thrum of anxiety in my veins and I will always, always choose to feel everything too much rather than not enough.

You know what else I am not? An adventure-seeker. I didn’t do the backpacking around Asia thing when I was in my twenties, I can’t think of anything worse than a theme park or a grubby festival site and I find the idea of a bungee jump or skydive absolutely preposterous. I won’t be jumping on a moped in Italy or playing volleyball on the beach because, frankly, I have absolutely no hand-eye coordination and would probably take someone out. I sometimes feel that James is missing out on the cool girlfriend he should have had, the fun, athletic one who has a glowing tan all year round and never says no to new experiences, but she is not me. Some might say that I’m uptight, I say that I merely like my adventures to be of the literary kind (and preferably set in a vast imaginary realm in which hot immortal men with claws and wings growl at me - iykyk). It’s OK to crave stillness over stimulation.

Finally, I am not a gym girlie. In fact, I’m not really an exercise girlie, to be honest. I have never found a form of exercise that I really love and enjoy; I’ve never managed to discover where I fit within the exercise space. Maybe I just don’t fit there. I feel very uncomfortable in gyms or studios where everyone is so flexible and graceful, while I’m incredibly awkward and stiff, so my chosen form of movement has always been walking - I walk everywhere. I hope that I might be able to find another type of exercise that works for me, especially as I get older, but right now I’m content with the fact that I eat nourishing food and I get my steps in, and maybe that’s enough.

Seeing these affirmations of what I am not on the screen in front of me, freely admitted and accepted, feels incredibly cathartic. It’s a permission slip to say no, to be our flawed selves, to lean into what makes us feel really good. Building a life means accepting it all as it comes, and reserving the right to change our minds or learn new stuff or find a new way of being. I don’t know about you, but that feels very comforting.

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Thanks so much for reading, folks! I hope you enjoyed this one :)