To my nervous inner self, from my confident outer self
Also includes drawings! (And quite a few animals)
22.08.2019–9.15 P.M
I have been thirty-one years old for …
Hang on.
Okay, six and a half weeks.
It only really occurred to me today, though.
I went for a jog with my daughter. (She’s five. She runs quite a lot faster than me.) This summer has been long, man. And hot. It felt like it would never end. Here we are, though, and somehow it’s ending. We found conkers on the ground on the way home. We picked, and ate, one blackberry. I even wore a cardigan for a good part of this morning. I mean, really! I seriously never thought I’d feel cold ever again. It was such an event (the cardigan) that I even announced it to my sisters.
Somehow the summer has nearly been and gone, and along with it, another birthday.
I don’t do much to celebrate birthdays nowadays, because I’m an outrageous introvert and also, I don’t really have the energy. But today it suddenly hit me that the season is going to change soon, and I’m getting old. I used to approach September with the wide-eyed optimism of someone with no wrinkles and lots of enthusiasm; now I look at it with a mild feeling of panic.
Oh, I think. ANOTHER September. Already?!
Anyway, now I’m sitting here, enjoying a glass of rum and taking stock of things when I should be working or tidying or something.
I’m trying to build a career at the moment: one that will not only support my family, but will grow into something bigger, and hopefully see us through the oncoming Brexit-triggered financial crapstorm. I’m not very good at it, though. Bits of it. Here are the bits I’m rubbish at:
- Posting on social media. I can’t Tweet, because the moment I think of something witty I fire up the app and then the thought plops out of my head. Also, I don’t really think witty thoughts very often. I keep meaning to post on Instagram more often, but then I forget. Also, I suck at Facebook and I kind of hate it.
- Talking about myself in the third person. Megan finds this difficult, as it makes her cringe in — oh, SHUT UPPPP.
- Advertising. I read other writers’ social media posts and I imagine them as little cartoon character leaping through the door at a party:
And then I imagine myself:
The world is not made for people who sheepishly stand in doorways and accidentally come across as creepy when in fact they’re just cripplingly shy. The world is made for those that leap in as though the world has been waiting for them to arrive before the party can get going.
So I am going for the ‘fake-it-til-you-make-it’ approach:
Client:
‘Hi, Megan. I’m looking for an article about giraffes. About 4000 words. I’d like you to focus quite extensively on the spots but not so much on the long neck thing. But do mention the long neck thing as it’s actually quite important. I’d like it to be quite funny but also informative and also a bit serious. I need it by Friday. Do you think you’ll be able to do that? Thanks! Clive’
External me:
‘Hi Clive! Yes, I can definitely do that! I can 100% produce a 4000 word spot-heavy, neck-light, semi-serious, semi-humorous and also factual giraffe article. And I can probably get it done earlier than Friday. I’ll email you later this week. Thanks! Megan’
Internal me:
‘I CAN’T WRITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT GIRAFFES. I AM A RUBBISH WRITER. I AM PRETENDING TO BE A GROWN-UP WRITER WOMAN WHEN ACTUALLY I’M NOT AND SURELY SOMEONE’S GOING TO CATCH ME OUT AT SOME POINT AND WHY DID I DECIDE TO DO THIS’
And so on. Internal me goes on quite a bit.
But the thing is, I actually am competent enough to write a 4000 word article about giraffes. (But please don’t call me out on this.) I can actually do this job. So the question is: which one is the real me? The external me that pretends to be breezy and confident or the internal me that shrivels up in fear like a tiny hedgehog at every new opportunity?
I’m not sure. Both, maybe?
I mean, it’s probably human nature to do this to a certain extent. To see the faults in ourselves and exaggerate them. Today I accomplished a whole load of tasks only to get annoyed at myself because of the following exchange:
Chris: ‘Have you seen any of my socks around anywhere?’
Me: ‘What about the pile of clean washing on the bedroom floor?’ (That’s where we keep it.) ‘Did you look there?’
Chris: ‘I looked there, yeah. I found one. There is one sock.’
Before you jump on my husband for being outrageously sexist, he was laughing as he said this because he knows full well it’s both our responsibilities to wash socks and somehow we’ve both forgotten to put washing on for the past several days.
But seriously? Socks? It doesn’t really matter, does it. Socks. Yet the small, prickly hedgehog in me thinks:
‘Why can’t we keep up with the washing like normal adults?’
Internal hedgehog me can be a right cow sometimes.
Anyway, what was I saying? Something about human nature?(I’ve now covered hedgehogs, giraffes, cows, and humans, and I’m getting a bit confused.) Oh yeah. We all do that negative-exaggeration thing. It’s why we gloss over complements but hang on to criticism, no matter how furious we are about said criticism. I’m actually really bad at taking complements:
Nice acquaintance: ‘Oh, I read your blog! You’re a good writer.’
Me (having temporarily forgotten that other people read it): ‘Oh! Haha. (Awkward pause) Erm, that’s really kind. It’s silly really.’
What? Just TAKE THE COMPLIMENT, WOMAN. What’s wrong with ‘thanks’?
Seriously.
What I am suffering from is Impostor Syndrome, and it is a well-known thing. My confidence, while vastly improved since my teens and early twenties, is still pretty low in comparison to some other people. And so instead of thinking ‘Yes, I can do this!’ I think ‘oh no, oh noooo.’
Actually, let’s rewind that paragraph.
‘In comparison to other people’.
No.
In comparison to other people’s external selves.
I hate to be Captain Obvious, but people who are advertising their services are obviously not going to be rabbiting on about how rubbish they think they are. Are they? (At least not pre-rum). They’re going to be putting their best selves forward, their shiny, breezy, ‘I’ve got this!’ selves. Duhhhh.
Maybe that’s the key thing. Maybe impostor syndrome is just part of being human. Maybe, on the inside, even the people I look up to as being the most super confident and self-assured are actually all small, prickly, nervous hedgehogs on the inside.
Or maybe they’re not, and maybe it’s just me.
But either way, here’s a note for my future internal self, from my confident outer self:
Stop worrying. You are competent. You are capable. You can do this.
Also, one of you needs to wash some socks.
