Define it how?

       Hello, lovelies.

          The question that is universally asked around the world every day is ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ For some, these questions seem easy to answer, and for the rest, we may never find an answer to them. We’re born, go to school, get a job, find a partner and settle down. Kids, mortgage, holidays and retirement. Wash rinse and repeat. But is that all there is? All we can expect from this crazy passed world? I know that we are lucky to be here, as the odds of us winning the birth lottery are around 250,000,000 to 1. And the world is a beautiful, wonderful place to be. Especially in this technological society that we live in. At a click of a button, on one of the most advanced devices we carry around daily, we can have all the information at our fingertips. Our NHS has managed to prolong and save our lives. We live in a country where we have access to clean water and healthy food. What more is there? Okay, so our beloved England may be undergoing a major far-right shift. And our most important members of society are being run into the ground through 13 years of radical underfunding, and dismantling. And yet that doesn’t define us as a nation. We still keep growing, even with the odds never being in our favour. So, what are we here for? Am I just meant to go about my day, never changing from who I was born to be? But what was I born to be and do? Who gets to decide that? What defines me?

          For the longest time, I would have described myself as a loud, opinionated, bubbly/crazy chatterbox. I could talk to anyone and everyone about almost anything, although trying to stay clear of money, politics and religion, my 3 favourite topics. But that wasn’t who I truly was. Growing up I was the most painfully shy, lacking in self-confidence and self-worth person who barely spoke when I left my house. It was so easy for me to constantly compare myself to everyone else around me, trying to emulate what I saw in other people to change and mould my personality to be able to fit in. Because fitting in was all that was important to me at the time. I couldn’t define myself then, as I wasn’t anyone with any defining qualities. But with life, I grew up and began to learn who I was, but then came the added extra of not actually liking the person I was becoming. Now, hold on a minute. It wasn’t that I didn’t like myself, more that I was constantly being told that I wasn’t a very nice person. For the longest time, I couldn’t differentiate between what some people told me that I was versus who I thought I was. That’s what happens when your then-best friend of 28 years and ex-husband of 23 years who both have Narcissistic personality disorder. How could I ever know what was going on in my head, when I had two other external voices telling me who I was? And yet, they couldn’t define me either. Somehow, I carried on doing all the things that made me happy, like going to drama school and working in the theatre, both of which they tried to dissuade me from. So, I carried on trying to be the loudmouthed the over-the-top Emma that I was expected to be.

            I have never been the prettiest, the cleverest or even the funniest person in the room, but I would always try to put myself out there, trying to show the world that I was worthwhile and had a place at the table. But unbeknownst to me, that would often put me at a total disadvantage. My excellent friend, who I love very dearly, once told me that I have the problem of scaring some people with my loud brashness. For what I saw as being open and bubbly, some saw as loud and unpredictable. In my need to fit in, I was alienating myself from the very people who I was trying to fit in with. So I learnt to be small. Make myself as small as possible. I stopped acting and stopped going to the theatre. I stopped being me. I put on my happy Emma face and spent about 10 years being a small shallow version of me. There were times that the loud unpredictable Emma would blurt out, and I would say the wrong thing, or put my foot in it. But on the whole, I became a shell. Could I have defined myself then? Or, more importantly, would I want to be?

            A few years on, I let go of my then best friend and her toxic personality and divorced my abusive and manipulative husband, and suddenly I began to breathe. My endless need to fit in left me for the first time. I could think for myself. I realised that it had never been that I disliked myself, but I disliked who they had tried to make me. I learnt that it was okay to have opinions and ideas. It was okay not to be liked by everyone all the time. As for being loud, it is a good thing, as there are so many people out there who haven’t found their voices yet, and I could work as a beacon for them to learn how to raise their voices. 

              So, could I define myself then? As a loud bubbly survivor of toxic and dangerous people? Was that who I was? A single mother who had a rocky start, who didn’t learn and repeated the same mistakes over and over. And then the cancer struck. With all that going on, the divorce, moving house, and my children growing up and heading off to university my life was marked with ovarian cancer stage 3B. Really?! After everything I had been through, I was now facing an almost certain death sentence. I went through all the tests, appointments and drugs that they threw at me. My bestie was there for all of it. My partner stood by my side as I lost all my hair and sense of life. Now can I define myself? I am a cancer survivor. Is that all I will ever be? 

              Well. I’ve had enough. I am not the person I was as a child. I am no longer controlled by my best friend. I am no longer scared and beaten by my ex-husband. And as for the cancer, well, it can bugger right off. Nothing in my past has been able to define me, even though they have all tried. And that’s how I can define myself. Someone who gets up when things go wrong, which they seem to do all the time. And someone who continues to try and be the very best that I can be. Sitting down and taking it may be an option for some, but not for me. And that’s how I choose to define myself. And how do you define yourself?