Cautious

More than once in my life I have been called a ‘scaredy cat’, however I prefer ‘cautious’. Even so this attempted insult has always amused me, because cats have 9 lives and in my mind bravery = possible death and is often stupid. I want to live to see my 100th year and risking my life has never seemed worth it. This mindset has earned me the respectable and sometimes irritating title of ‘sensible’ which comes with ‘reliable’ and makes for great employability - but not necessarily an exciting life. I love a challenge and have achieved many things on my bucket list like playing mas in Trinidad Carnival. However, 28 years has come with plenty of revelations, one of which is that I live a large majority of my life via fear-based decisions. These fears are well hidden, often veiled under the half-truth “I don’t like that” or “I’m no good at it”. The reality is that underneath those statements there usually lies a fear - conscious or unconscious.

For years I have said “I’m no good at writing and I am bad with words. I am more of a maths/science girl than a words girl”. Which is often met by surprise and confusion as I love books and can chat for days about most topics. When reciting this old phrase recently, a friend said that maybe that wasn’t actually my story, and this triggered an old deeply buried memory.

When I was 15, I was a perfectionist (still am tbh - working on it*). I have always been an A/A+ student in the top sets for my subjects. For those who may not know, when you are doing well in school and a child of Caribbean parents, you are automatically destined to be a doctor or a lawyer. At the time I had picked doctor, so when I consistently got B’s in English Language and English Literature this was not only a failure - but would derail my university admission and ruin my life (yes I was dramatic, still am - also working on it). Our English classes were taught in a dark north-facing miserable room, on the 3rd floor of the ‘tower’ - an ugly listed building that looked like a pile of cardboard boxes. I remember sitting in the darkness, illuminated only by the projector, in yet another English class that completely puzzled me. I couldn’t understand why I was failing - I could follow the class, I loved reading and wasn’t awful at public speaking. Why couldn’t I get higher marks? I was so proud of the assignment that I had handed in and still it came back with a big fat B jeering at me.

Most children would just ask why they’d received this grade, but here is the thing about me - I am the child who repeatedly pee’d herself age 3 in pre-school despite being toilet trained, because she didn’t want to bother the teacher or disrupt the class. I will allow my stomach to eat itself before asking for food. If I get an inkling someone doesn’t really want to give me the lift they’ve politely offered - I will walk 3 hours in the rain and tell them not to worry about it. I am naturally shy, I hate to inconvenience anyone and I am as stubborn as a goat. Deadly combo. The determination to not get in the way, be additional work or a burden, is engraved so strongly in the core of my personality that it was there before I could even write my name.

But this day was different, for some reason sitting in that dark classroom I had a flicker of hope. That day I believed that not only could I change my grades, but that my teacher would want to help me. I don’t know if it was because this teacher recommended books to her students, or that I’d seen her give my peers careful feedback and praise when it was due. Maybe it was just a brave day, or I’d read the Dr Ben Carson book and been inspired (that book aged badly). Whatever it was, when class ended I hung behind and told my friends to go to lunch without me. I asked my teacher if I could have a moment and plucked up the courage to say “I really want to get higher grades, what can I do to improve my writing?”. I will never forget the expression on her face, because, it was one I initially didn’t understand.

She looked embarrassed.

After a pause, she apologised and told me that there was nothing I could to do improve, it is what it is and besides sometimes we just aren’t good at things. The expression suddenly made sense - she wasn’t embarrassed, rather she was embarrassed for me. As the authority on writing for that 15 year old girl, if she didn’t see any hope then there was none. I left that room with two new values/stories/narratives that day:

I could never be a good writer, goodbye to getting an A (fear of writing)
If you aren’t good at something, don’t keep trying (to fail means to give up)

13 years later, it has only just dawned on me that my teacher could have been be wrong, and that my friend could be right - I adopted a story that was not mine. That actually, anyone can be an expert on anything, gifted or not. In his book Outliers**, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that if people have the right resources, environment, effort and 10,000 hours to dedicate, they can outperform those who are born with ‘natural ability’. Only when examining this memory with context-tinted glasses do I see that as the only black child in a school of 1000+ children (≈90% white English), I was probably subject to a teachers’ personal issues, that strange unspoken dislike minority groups know and understand well. That this episode of my life was likely a racially driven, albeit unintentional, micro-aggression. Child, you are not permitted to be good at everything, you are aiming too high, know your place. Or she was just hangry and I’d delayed her lunch. Whatever the reason, I realise now she was completely wrong. When I googled “how to write better” there were a million links, books, videos and resources on how to improve your writing. Looking for other advice to change my narrative had just never occurred to me.

So in 2022 I am going to write. It is the first of many fears/untruths I will be addressing this year and it wouldn’t be revolutionary or a challenge if I didn’t also publish my annoyingly-less-than-perfect pieces somewhere. I don’t really have a topic/focus yet. Maybe for some I will still be a bad writer, but I doubt it matters. I’ll probably end up venting, definitely write lots of book reviews and more than likely talk about my clothes. With any luck this won’t be the only “Bye Fear” post I will write, and you’ll hopefully join me in my conquering fear journey, or at least be mildly entertained. If you are addressing any fears this year drop in a comment below, I’d love to see them.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year 🤍

*anyone else see the hilarity and irony of a perfectionist trying to perfect not being a perfectionist? Lol

** 10/10 would recommend

FOR ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME IRL - please never speak to me about this blog or any of it’s contents, I will be very embarrassed and pretend I don’t know what you are talking about and make the mental note that you hate me. If I want to talk to you about it I promise I will, I’ll address the Scopophobia / fear of too much attention later. Please be patient with me, I’m going one fear at a time.

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