It wasn’t until I was about 35, that something positive switched on in my head. My husband and I had been finally blessed with children, for which I was eternally grateful, and it was whilst I was still on maternity Photography: Beverley Perkins Photography
Brush the self-sabotaging stuff aside, a bit at a time
Over the passing of time, it bore more power too, acne, puberty, relationship fails, and later miscarriages fuelled my poor selfimage further. I think it would be fair to say that I fell out with myself and felt the same disgust that ‘Mr Popular’ had perceived.
THERE I AM AGED 12, STOOD IN THE GYM AT OUR SCHOOLS’ ANNUAL CHRISTMAS COUNTRY DANCING AFTERNOON...YES YOU HEARD RIGHT. THE USUAL SCENARIO OF GIRLS ONE SIDE AND BOYS THE OTHER IN WHICH THE POPULAR LOTHARIOS GET TO STRUT THEIR CONFIDENCE AND CHOOSE THEIR BOTTLE GREEN CLAD DAMSEL IN A PENCIL SKIRT.
I
was usually one of the stragglers at the end, awkwardly looking at her shoes and awaiting the nod of acceptance from any one of the remaining boys. This ceremony felt like a rite of passage despite the fact it was inevitable that at some point, paths would cross with the higher ranks. It wasn’t until I’d realised the music had stopped abruptly, halfway through a ‘dosey-doe’, that I had landed face to face, mid hand clasp, with ‘Mr Popularity’ himself… gulp. In that vacuum of silence that quickly followed, I felt him drop my hands and saw him step away with a look of disgust like he’d touched a corpse. To which he then turned to his surrounding audience and retorted that it would be best “not to get too close (to me) in case he caught” and I quote “ugly disease”. All I heard after that was the laughter, which somehow made an otherwise flippant remark before, now become something concrete and truthful. I was obviously ugly! One stupid comment from one moron took my spark that day and a new nemesis was born. the negative belief that I was “flawed” and therefore, not valuable, or acceptable to my peers. Boom! MUMPRENEUR MOVEMENT |
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