Letting Go of The Crank Feels Glorious
Let go, chill out and spill pizza down yourself. It will change your life.
After the height of COVID-19, I was able to fly my family’s lockdown nest and live in my very own flat thanks to signing onto benefits.
Thus began my tireless rampage of beating myself into a new shape in hopes of fitting a mould that could earn me back my livelihood and financial freedom…
After the initial rage of partying and making regrettable decisions, of course. It felt like rumspringa after being cooped up in a quiet cottage for 8 months solid.
2 years on and I’m off benefits, in the best relationship imaginable and am capable of doing anything I can think of. Only I can’t think now.
Even in a bigger apartment just me and my boyfriend, I still keep my freak flag in the cupboard, next to my childhood trauma and those black drainpipes I will “one day fit into again”.
I’m still as tightly wound as I was at the start. So worried about looking unprofessional and being sniffed out as an imposter I denied myself a lot of luxuries, mainly self-love.
When I wasn’t trying to prove myself as a writer and professional to the internet, I was seeking approval from the very few people I could physically see whilst living in numerous confined spaces.
It exhausted me.
To someone like me who has taught herself to question and edit every step, something as trivial as uttering a few lines of word vomit on Twitter about a new show on Netflix with incorrect grammar is considered tripping over untied laces.
Who am I if not someone who is seen as a polite, non-opinionated, people-serving PR consultant who never forgets to dot the i’s, cross the t’s and always minds their p’s and q’s?
My online social presence is a tragic alphabet soup. And even that’s better than my one offline.
Fun fact, I now prefer seeing strange dogs to knowing humans.
Maybe it’s normal to live with this identity dichotomy. Or maybe I’m going through a crisis. Just as Stanley Ipkiss faced when he danced with The Mask. Either way, I am learning to let go of the crank once in a while and relax into the propelled frenzy of what unfurls.
If that doesn’t make for interesting writing material, I don’t know what will.
Joking aside, I’ve learned clients and contacts aren’t always going to care about our personal lives and online footprints. They’re not stalking our Twitter feeds to see us slip up so they can silently judge you for it.
Unless you’re JK Rowling. In which case, you need off the internet and into hiding.
Bottom line is, that “they” don’t care about you nearly as much as you care about how you think they care about you… if that makes sense.
I’m not yet at a place where I can plant my freak flag but I do like to take it out on occasion.
And I’ll try and wave it around every once in a while, even if it’s to know if it can still fly.
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