Be-Long-Ing

I am more like them than I have ever cared to admit. It struck me in the corridoor today as I was muttering to myself and bumped into Henry. Embarrassed I apologised for being crazy. Smiling he replied that after working with me for so long, he knows I can't be still. I need to be running around or doodling or chatting to myself. And I realised I get that from my dad. And sometimes, it really gets to me that he's not chilled out but now that it's a trait we share, I like it more. I think part of growing up is accepting this is where I come from. That I learnt or inherited (the answer to the nature or nurture debate has always been fixed in my mind as nurture/nature), to be timid and gentle from my mum makes me smile now. For so long I have wanted to "be my own person" and now I realise it is the coolest feeling ever to understand how you are what you are.

At the same time I am intrigued by, and anticipate, a sojourn of tabula rasa. A place of being known as nothing and no one. No "I grew up in the same building as your dad" or "I served on Cancer Care with you mum" or "You're the fourth of the pretty sisters?" or "Mariam's other half" or "the MSA Halqa girl at the coffee shop". I know it will sting and burn and I will hate knowing that others do not know me. And yet at the same time it could be the greates test of who I am, to fight for all I have become....