To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight…and never stop fighting.
-E.E. Cummings
This is my favourite quote. Ever. In fact on every personal e-mail I send out, you’ll find this quote at the bottom of my e-mail underneath my name and contact details.
I was always quite happy being myself. Until I was 10 and I started getting bullied at school. I was so relieved when I got to S3 and you got to pick your subjects and also got streamed according to academic level. Of course there were still mean horrible teenage peers to put up with, but it wasn’t what I call ‘bullying’. Just meanness. And I felt more comfortable with who I was as a person, and just thought ‘I’m just going to be myself, and I’m not just going to be like them‘.
I had the misconception that ‘being yourself’ would be an easier choice as you got older. I now realise – it’s not. It is a continuous battle. The pressures of how people want you to be, the expectations of others are constant.
Over the last few weeks, my blog friend, Holly has hosted a fabulous blog series called ‘Godfree bloggers‘. I’ll be honest, a few things said in those posts really got to me. I do have a belief in God. Yes, it is an intrinsic part of my life and my values. Does that make me unintelligent or stupid or crazy? Some people clearly think so. And I get it, because I used to think people who believed in God were off their trolley. I found it interesting reading the posts and I found it sad to hear that some people stopped following Holly’s blog as a result of the series. But a few things said in some of the posts I felt hurt by, which is ridiculous when they weren’t directed at me personally. Basically I wanted not to be me for a moment because I wanted those bloggers to like me.
When I decided God was real, there were noticeable changes in my life. But really, I became more ‘me’. I stopped hiding behind my diguise as the bacardi queen (my friends will tell you that aside from the crying that me on bacardi is not to different from me on a sugar or ‘silliness’ high anyway).
The book that was hugely influential for me, was one written about a girl who was killed in the Columbine shootings. In it, there is a quote from her which ties in with the wisdom from Mr Cummings…
It’s really easy to end up leading different lifes and hiding bits of yourself depending on what environment you are in. For a long time, I would return to Edinburgh and try to do all the ‘old Laura Anne’ stuff afraid that I’d lose my friends if I shared about my belief in God too much. And when I was in church I didn’t want to share too much about my Edinburgh life for fear that I’d lose my friends at church.
Total madness.
It took me about 4 years before I found who I was, and stayed in my true colours in all environments.
I hope I never have to learn that lesson again, but I know that the battle to continue being the person I was created to be is one that I’ll have to keep fighting for as long as I live.
But it is definitely a battle worth fighting.
