Child talk

I watched a really interesting Ted talk lately
About the chains we wrap around ourselves, which hold us back
Where did we accumulate all these suffocating chains?

The first time we fell down
The first time we got our heart broken
The first time we got a bad test score…

Most of these things, they happened as we grew up and childhood ended.

The first time I fell down

Child talk:
I don’t remember the exact time I first fell over, I was probably a baby learning to walk. And it probably didn’t bother me at all. All I wanted to do at that age was bite things…

I remember being about 5 years old, I came down a slide and my leg hurt. Though I guess it must have hurt quite bad because my dad took me to the hospital and the doctor put my leg in a cast for 6 weeks. At that time I was anything but sad, it was great, I’d never had a cast before and people would wait on me. 5 years old with a broken leg, 5 year old me believed I was living the life.

Getting older:

Maybe I was around seven, I fell off my scooter coming down a hill, I panicked and forgot to break as a car was coming down the road beside me. I hit the road, shoulder first just as the car drove past. I cried a lot, I still have a faint scar from the hit. The pain was awful. And all I thought about was the pain.

The first time we got our heart broken

Child talk:
Entering my first relationship at 15, I had nothing to compare it to. So when he said he wanted to play football at school break time, did I take it as a rejection, did I take it as he doesn’t like me that much, did I take it as what’s wrong with me. No, of course I didn’t. I shrugged and said ‘cool’. I didn’t want to spend all of my time with him anyway.

Getting older:
At 18, when I started feeling distant between me and my then boyfriend, 15 year old me would have said ‘Do you have to play football every break, can we spend a bit more time together’
18 year old me had been hurt, in my relationship at 15 and another at 16. 18 year old me didn’t want to push him away, so I ignored this instinct feeling that something wasn’t right between us, and I shrugged and said ‘cool’ out loud to myself. Even though, unlike when I was 15, this time it really wasn’t ‘cool’.

The first time we got a bad test score

Child talk:
I was about 5, in art class. We were painting the Tudors, most of my classmates were painting one of Henry’s six wives. My table got given Henry to paint, brilliant I thought, the most important person. I didn’t care if I didn’t paint inside the lines, if my brush strokes were messy and overlapped, if colour went on colour and his face looked more like a broken mosaic than anything real. F*ck did I care, I believed I did a great job and so I did.

Getting older:
So it wasn’t quite paint class anymore, we upgraded to Chinese mandarin translation. And I upgraded to 17 years older. 22, in my final year of uni, and I got a test score back that I was so unhappy with. I worked so hard, I love Chinese, I barely passed. But that’s the thing, I still passed. One of the hardest languages in the world, f*cking translation (which I hate), give me a Henry VIII portrait to paint any day. But instead I focused on everything I did wrong. I’m not good enough, I’m not clever enough, what if I don’t get a 2:1 in my degree. Take a seat and breathe. I should have been proud of myself for the effort, that fact I passed. I never was.

Everyone has chains they have to break and remembering that time when I was 5 or that time when I’ll be 85. And I didn’t/won’t give a f*ck.

Because I was just starting life and had nothing to compare it to, verse, my life will be near the end and you realise what’s the point in giving a fck anymore. Time is too short and at the age of 5 I didn't even know what 'giving a fck meant'; I chose not to give one anyway.

My chains pull me back from communicating, from accepting, from enjoying the little things, from self love, self worth, from having the strength to stand my ground, to know when enough is enough and to know the worth of my achievements.

At 22 (my lucky number) I wasn't having the best time in my flat at university.
At 22 I found out my mum had cancer.
At 22 the panic attacks and the anxiety hit.
At 22 I felt life was very unstable. The come down from university and the short state of limbo after that.
At 22 I was worrying a lot about money.
At 22 I got a part time job cleaning toilets and making beds.
At 22 I wanted to commit suicide.

That same year I read a book called, ‘reasons to stay alive’
That same year I graduated university.
That same year I called a helpline and got help.
That same year I booked a one way ticket to Beijing.

I still have chains, but I am only human.