 It may surprise you to know - as it does many people, that my seemingly free-flowing creative mind needs predictability and structure to function.
Every morning I have the same routine - get up at around sunrise, get dressed, take the Hector the Studio Dog for a walk. Then feed him. I'll have my breakfast, which is always the same: a cup of tea, three grapes sliced, one or two of each type of berry that's in season, and four spoons of Greek yogurt. And it will stay the same for years, until I decide to change it. Oh - with the occasional fast morning when I have a cup of green tea instead but that is still built in to my routine. My husband has usually left for work by this time - around 4:30am during harvest. While I eat breakfast with Hector, I watch a lifestyle or renovation programme on TV. Then I brush my teeth and wash my face. Make the bed. Put on makeup (which I've done since high school). Then I do emails and I clean the kitchen. Sunday is the exception. I have to skip the bed-making because my husband gets up after me and then we head out to breakfast at 6am. Once I've completed my morning sequence, then it depends on the day. But the order of days has its own pattern too.
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 Why my six page CV feels emotionally hollowI stand in my home, looking at twenty certificates mounted on my wall. Qualifications, awards, distinctions. A 99% average in child psychology. Creative artist of the year. Business awards. My CV runs over six pages.
I feel nothing. They're pieces of paper now. I didn't put them up to celebrate myself - I put them up to remind me what I've achieved in life and so that other people could see what I'd done without me having to tell them. Another form of hiding in plain sight. I've seen others on social media celebrating their wins, their achievements. When I try, it feels performative, presumptuous - like I'm showing off. So I post occasionally, brief and humble: "So proud and grateful to have won this award." And I'll even agree to newspaper articles and interviews. It's a compromise. Public enough to be seen, but modest enough not to trigger the danger signals that have lived in my nervous system for decades. I used to think this was just me. That I was ungrateful, or broken somehow. But then I realised - my son does exactly the same thing - so I researched. |
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