Could you tell me a time you felt homesick?

Having lived at home with my parents all my life, when I was twenty, I came two hundred miles from my family home in Todmorden to college, in Edinburgh. I was very close to my family, especially my mother. Perhaps this was partly because during the war my father was away in the navy so there was just my mother and me. My brother was not born till after the war. For the first term in Edinburgh I was terribly homesick and quite unhappy. I went home for Christmas and had a happy time amongst family and friends. I returned to Edinburgh slightly apprehensive but not as bad as the first term. Shortly into the second term I met the man who would eventually become my husband. After that the homesickness left me for good and I was happy either home or away.

Could you tell me a time you took a risk?

I’ve found that living with a big vision of the future you wish to create brings some doubt and anxiety about the details of the how, when and where of it all — And the way we’re brought up in society hasn’t allowed us to live with these creative tensions — suggesting that we always need to have control over these things — so when we don’t, we stress!

It’s nice to have things under control... it’s nice to see the full view... and I think that’s why most people stay at their ‘control towers‘ in life. Unless you sense or know there is a much deeper river of life out there waiting for you to experience, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s pretty hard to let go of the control!

But learning to live with the mystery, the unknown, the doubt — is one of the most rich and purposeful experiences Elise and I have had. 
I remember this time last year just before Elise left her job to pursue our dreams, I asked her if she was sure she wanted to leave the comfort of the job (that she loved!). She just simply looked at me and said, “we weren’t created to be comfy.” Probably the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard someone say ha! But I think that’s so real — because we don’t ever arrive at a place where this all comes easy — it’s a real journey — but I believe if you listen to the voice of encouragement deep within, and simply trust and believe that this inner voice is not your own but the voice of your designer/creator/divine encourager/God — you’ll find overwhelming peace amongst the unknowns of life — and you’ll be able to step into the fullness of the journey you were born to explore and enjoy.

You’ll be able to let go of the exhausting fight for control and find rest and joy in not knowing the full picture. 

So, if you’ve read this far, know that it’s okay to figure things out step by step. It’s a journey — and there’s no beauty without mystery.

Could you tell me a time you felt pressure?

Pressure is usually synonymous with external factors; friends, finances, relationships etc. However, the times when I have felt under the most pressure, have been where these factors aren’t really apparent. It has been in everyday life, putting pressure on myself to act in a certain way, be a certain person. 

These internal forces , were especially felt as I started at university in first year. I felt very lucky and excited to start. I had in mind exactly what I thought the university experience, my course and generally how I wanted my three years to go. Without realising it, I was putting pressure on myself to live up to these expectations. Coupled with the inevitable pressures of weekly essay deadlines, tutorials and regular tests meant that first year was a bit of a rocky one. 

Being surrounded by brilliant people was amazing but equally led me to feeling incredibly out of place, although this was well known as imposter syndrome - I didn’t know it at the time, and just thought they had made a big mistake in my admission process! This gradually led to physical manifestations of pressure. I initially overworked, just in order to not appear as out of place as I felt, before applying to a different university at the end of term 1 in the hope of moving. 

I was incredibly lucky to meet someone on my course who felt very similarly to I did. Perhaps the most surprising and perhaps comforting, thing was that I wouldn’t have expected her to feel this intense pressure to fit in and do well, as she seemed to be calm and bubbly on the outside. This really emphasised to me that many people are experiencing similar challenges, and many are hiding behind trying to appear on top of things, or laughing off doing badly – I know I was. Talking to her was helpful beyond words, it allowed me to talk to my tutors and open up about the pressure I felt. Long chats, rants and sharing tips were all conducive to a much improved second year. Pressure will always be an inevitable accompaniment to experiences you care about, however, I have gradually learnt (through talking and learning) to not let this pressure distort the way I looked at things.

Could you tell me a time you felt proud?

As a gay woman, I feel I should open this passage about pride with a nod to my fellow queers. Whatever shape and size they come in, the majority of those who identify with the LGBTQ+ community will understand, unfortunately, what it is like to feel embarrassed, ashamed, uncomfortable, or simply: not proud.

It took roughly two years for me to get from point A (it’s a phase) to point B (it’s definitely not a phase) of my sexuality. And for the most part of this time, I felt pretty disgusted in myself. 

But this confused me. What reasoning did I have to feel this way? The people I surrounded myself with were supportive and loving. Scotland, the country I was born and raised in, was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the world in terms of LGBTQ+ rights. I’d even spent most of my teenage years speaking up about the LGBTQ+ community and the importance of acceptance. It just never occurred to me that I was speaking up for myself. 

For the first few months, I woke up most nights in sweats. I asked myself over and over why it had to be me. And as I began to understand the weight behind spitting out a certain three words, I wanted them to disappear. But instead, I saw them everywhere. 

The words ‘I am gay’ felt like acid on my lips. 

It took me two years to say those words. Even though they danced around my head every minute of every day, I let twenty-four months pass me by without uttering them. I admit, I crept around them. I used alternative phrases like “I like girls,” “I’m not straight,” or “I’m experimenting.” But I knew what I was doing, and I knew that I was pretty much in a state of denial. The expressions I was using left room for interpretation. They were true, but they still left much up to the imagination; I wasn’t straight and I did like girls… maybe I was just curious! Maybe this way, I didn’t have to be gay.

As a straight-passing, Edinburgh-born, white, well-educated female coming out in the 21st century, I can really see why some might find my story questionable. Why on earth did I find it so difficult to come out, when nobody even cares these days?! To explain:

Because people still care.

My internalised homophobia did not develop itself. It was taught and it was learned. Sometimes it’s the small things. A stare that lasts just a moment too long; a simple assumption that I have a boyfriend and not a girl. But other times, it’s the big things. Like being taught sex education for eight years through school and barely a mention of homosexuality. As a child every book, film, TV show; filled with straight characters and straight plots. Dreaming about my future honeymoon carefully because I want to be able to hold my wife’s hand on the street. When I used to think about being gay, I felt dirty. 

But I dealt with it eventually. I am gay. And I told my friends, my family, told colleagues and strangers. I am a lesbian. Looking back, I can’t remember if the words practically jumped out of my mouth, or if they were forced. I think it was a mixture of the two.

And this is where pride comes in. All the sweeter because I pushed it away for so long and because really, it’s nice to feel proud of something that you used to hate. I am proud of being a gay woman and I have grown to love saying those words (if you couldn’t tell). I join millions of others who represent a different kind of normal and we are lucky to be able to come together in celebration of this.

But, I want to recognise that my story certainly does not encompass that of everyone. Only this month did MPS vote to legalise same sex marriage in Northern Ireland. In 2019, a Boston group plans to march in favour of straight pride. The sultan of Brunei implemented stoning to death under stricter anti-LGBT laws earlier this year and there are still a handful of countries that uphold the death penalty for homosexual activity. My nightmares are many people’s truths, and for this reason, I understand the importance of recognising my privilege and being proud of being gay. Not everyone can be. 

Could you tell me a time you felt fear?

The word fear is often associated and thought of with negative connotations. I guess in the last year the feeling of fear has hit me in many ways, admittedly negative, but also in a more positive way, a way that has made me feel scared, but determined at the same time. 

Throughout my life I have been faced with fear: fear of losing, fear of trying too hard and failing, fear of my own thoughts and ambitions and even a fear of something that may not ever happen to me. But the fear of the unknown in your own life has to be one of the most significant and for me the largest and newest emotion I have felt in the last year. Whilst entering the last year of my university experience at this stage of my life, I came across large challenges, some that I knew eventually I would get through, but many I had no idea what the impact or the outcome of such actions would be. I was aware that I had so many decisions to make in the near future, the fear of the unknown and not knowing what will happen if I choose a certain pathway of life hits you hard, not only is it constantly on your mind: as you are weighing up such choices and consequences of choosing a certain route to take, but also you know that ultimately the ownership is on you and only you for making such decisions. Throughout the year I have tried to weigh up and think and really try and engage with how and what I want my life to be like, and as a 22-year-old female that is hard. Once you reach adulthood the expectation of you being brave and fearless really is a myth, if anything, when you become an adult that is when you really start to experience consequential fear. When making the decisions I have made (and I am still yet to make more) I have decided that going with the moment and what you feel at that precise moment deters the fear that you may be feeling and simply makes you feel like it is a small decision you are making that day. The fear of the unknown will never leave, it will also never get easier as I get older and ultimately have to make even more decisions and regulate consequences. At the beginning I stated that not all moments where I have felt fear this year have been negative, in fact many things I have feared have turned out to be some of the most amazing things I have experienced this year. Fear is not to be feared; fear is to be negotiated with: for example, whatever you are scared of now, will you still be scared of that in a month, year or even two years’ time? The fear of the unknown has definitely developed me into a stronger minded individual, not only that but I have learnt that the fear of the unknown is normal, positive, natural and healthy.

Could you tell me a time you felt self love?

Self Love is a journey.

It’s impossible to talk about that journey without facing up to what came before. Self loathing.

I’m sure it’s a familiar tale to plenty of people. Tearing myself to shreds, overly critical about my abilities, about my body, about myself as a person. Imagining the worst things people could think about me and taking those to be truth. I’d try to take control of how I was feeling. To manage it in all the wrong ways. I was punishing my body by withholding things I like and need, like food and space to heal, and overindulgence in the household numbing agent of choice, alcohol. Strictly controlling my diet wasn’t making me any happier. My body got smaller but it wasn’t good enough. The workouts got tougher and became daily and were not to clear my head but to punish myself, to push my body to the brink. They didn’t help either. The booze helped. When I was drunk I didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought about me. I could stop the nonstop criticism in my head and just relax. It was wonderful. And then the morning would come and I’d be a wreck. But not from the hangover. It wasn’t the physical effects of the booze that left me crippled. It was the psychological effects. I was far more anxious than I previously had been pre-drinking. What had I said? What had I done? I’d probably made a tit of myself. People probably thought I was a terrible person because I’d have revealed that I actually am a terrible person. I’d want to hide and outwardly pretend it never happened whilst inwardly destroying myself. So I’d restrict my food, or kick my ass in a workout and punish myself to balance it all out. And it all worked out and I lived happily ever after in this healthy cycle of self loathing, numbing and more self loathing.

The one thing I was fairly sure I was good at was my job. When I was at work I was fine. The worry and bullying would mute and I’d spend my days helping other people solve their problems and helping them overcome their anxieties. Before I knew what had happened I had thrown far too much of myself into my work and I had a serious burn out. My mental health hit rock bottom and I couldn’t work. I couldn’t do much at all. I felt like a shadow of a person, vaguely human shaped but completely unable to function. The self loathing took on a whole new level and all hope escaped me. I would look at old photos of myself laughing and smiling and think ‘Why can’t I be THAT woman? She was actually pretty fun. She laughed. She has friends. She knew what she wanted in life. She was pretty cool. Why didn’t I appreciate her when now I am THIS wreck?!’ This was retrospective self love accompanied by the greatest self loathing I’d ever felt. Self loathing which convinced me that the world would be better if I wasn’t in it. It was dark. And hard. And I wanted to be the woman I used to be. I wanted to have a second chance and to appreciate her and tell her I loved her, show her the affection that she needed and deserved so that she’d never leave me again. No wonder she’d left when all she’d had from me was shit.

I made some drastic life changes, quit my job, took a considerable amount of time off and worked only on projects I was passionate about but that I could manage, promising myself I’d duck out if I started noticing those patterns of downward spiral again. Steps towards self love can be big or small. Talking to people about my breakdown and what had happened reduced my anxiety. I realised I wasn’t alone. Then things like curating my Instagram feed and removing anyone who made me feel bad or critically compare myself to.

I stopped drinking alcohol. That alone has been the single biggest act of self love, the biggest step, and one of the toughest parts of this journey. When I have a bad day all I want is a large glass of wine (or five!), evidence that to me it is a numbing agent, a way to avoid facing up to my issues and communicating how I feel. Instead I’ll have a lemonade and open up about how I’m feeling. Shock horror, it’s far more effective than deadening my emotions! Sobriety has shown me that I’m good at conversation, can make people laugh, can still tell a good story, can dance and sing and be in the moment completely stone cold sober. This woman can still be life and soul and be sober. It’s a great feeling. So is the sweet joy of waking up hangover free! I’ve been embracing my body. It’s changed since I started to allow myself to eat what I wanted. I look in the mirror and see how far I’ve come. I see the curves and wobbles and feel proud that they’re there because they show me how far I’ve come. A year ago I’d have bullied this body away.

I’m still growing, getting to a stage where I’m ready to work out again but my fear of obsessive exercise in the name of faux self love is still there. My body needs me to move but it doesn’t deserve to be punished. I’m not confident I can get back into a regular workout routine without slipping back into old habits. I know i’ll write this and send it over and then worry that it’s not good enough. I’m still learning and that’s ok. Baby steps. Self Love is a journey.

Could you tell me a time you felt hopeful?

So, hopeful from my understanding is about looking towards things in the future, the future tense and looking forward to something. But, when you ask me that question I don't think there has ever been a specific time in my life where I have generally been hopeful about anything in particular. There are always these little worries and doubts about anything that I do and anything that is happening. I get bogged down in a lot of the "what if" scenarios, such as what if this happens, or what if that happens. I think its these scenarios which really get in the way of truly feeling optimistic about anything. I'm too busy being realistic, or at least always sort of planning for the worst case. I think there is always this kind of damage limitation mindset I suppose, which overshadows the hopeful or optimistic view. Although obviously I do have hopes about things. I don't often think about the future but when I do, I like to think that I will find a freedom from the negative headspace, allowing myself to be the person I want to be, have more inner confidence and more ability in my own judgment. I'm just hopeful to find a freedom from my own doubts.     

Could you tell me a time you felt scared?

At the moment, yes I am scared. Scared of how life will pan out in the next twenty or thirty years' time. I worry about my family and specifically about my grandson who is growing up in a unpredictable modern climate. My grandson has a lot of living to do, I want him to love life without stresses or scares based on the future. I pray that all my family's dreams and ambitions work out well for them. The most scared I have been, is probably during my recent open heart surgery and my weeks of recovery. This feeling of being scared of “the tomorrow” causes worry, however I got through it. It’s silly being scared about the tomorrow. We can't do anything about it and what will be will be.         

Could you tell me a time you laughed until you cried?

I was in Hamburg a couple of months ago with two friends, James and Kyle. One of the highlights of the holiday was a trip to ‘Miniatur Wunderland’, the largest miniature museum in the world! Instead of a model village it’s like a model world you can wander round. We tried to go early afternoon but due to the overwhelming popularity of tiny stuff we had to book tickets and come back later. The man in the ticket office told us there would be a wait time of 100 minutes, a perfectly normal and often used interval of time. We decided to spend our 100 minutes in the pub and returned for our miniature experience full of beer and excitement. Every five or ten minutes the lights would fade on and off, allowing us to enjoy the wunderland scenes at both day and night. After a while exploring miniature scenes from around the world, talk turned to souvenirs. After much daring and false protesting, we started competing to see who could pocket the best miniature figurine. We waited for nightfall. Things started small with James picking up a stray barrel the size of a peanut but escalated quickly. Emboldened by our early success I made off with a tiny dog, bike, car, cow, tree and sunbather. Things got interesting when James shared the exciting news that he’d managed to grab Spiderman. Unable to show each other our spoils until we’d left the museum, the big reveal was left till we sat down for a beer. Initial disappointment in Kyle’s poor haul of one guy was blown out the water when James emptied his pockets. In his anxious haste to snatch a miniature superhero he had overshot. I laughed until I cried looking at James forlornly clutching not tiny Spiderman, but just a man in an orange jumper grabbed with such force that his legs had been left behind.

Could you tell me a time you felt anxiety?

To be honest, most mornings when I wake up. It’s something I have tried to kind of manage or at least micro manage through friends, family and doing things that I enjoy. But it’s something which is always there at the back of my mind. I have tried to shut it out, but it gets to a point where it will bubble up and feels like it’s getting too much. A fear for me is thinking that I don’t have much control over it and that it could potentially spiral out of control. It feels like you can’t focus on anything, everything is just running at one hundred miles an hour, heart’s going crazy and you almost feel trapped, or kind of underwater. It’s a bit like sensory deprivation and I guess everything just feels a bit muffled.

Could you tell me a time you felt angry?

Right, so I suppose to start with I want to say I am not a really angry person.  I think most people that know me wouldn't say I was an angry person and think I'm pretty chilled out. But, in saying that I think I do have a really bad temper, I think that's the ginger gene, which I definitely get from my dad I think. To pick a specific time I felt angry I find difficult.  As I have a long fuse my anger comes from more a build up of frustration, which leads to a big outburst lasting a few seconds.  An example of something which specifically makes me angry is if someone was to say anything negative against someone who I am very close with......I get very protective and often say things which are probably out of order. For instance, to members of my family who say things to my brother which will make me loose the rag. But, I can think of other times when I have been angry. When I have been annoyed at my girlfriend...oh god she is going to kill me for saying that.  However, I wouldn't say that's anger. I would say anger is when I get a proper surge of rage, with no off switch, until it's run its course but it always passes. I don't ever get physical, I have never been in a fight in my life and couldn't batter a fish. I do think I get a bit of red rage, calm down and then feel really shit because I hate losing my temper.

Could you tell me a time you felt love?

Okay, well I was scared and anxious all throughout my pregnancy. I had all sorts of problems and scares, one after the other and spent nine months feeling a constant dread that something was wrong. I didn't know what, but I just convinced myself that something was wrong.  The emergency C-section didn't help when the baby was born and afterwards, it was almost like it had happened to someone else.  I had to stay in the hospital for a few days and I would look over in the crib and I would think, yeah that's a nice baby, but he could have been anybody's. I didn't feel like he was mine and there was certainly none of that mother/child connection which I thought would be there automatically. I certainly didn't do any doting, I remember even sitting reading a book, which I thought was a bit odd at the time. Anyway, day four was discharge day and I remember a nurse.....I think it was a nurse, or it could have been a health visitor came to collect the baby.  Because all babies have to have this heel prick test before they leave the hospital. So I just handed him over and I waited and I was sitting there waiting....I remember it being really sunny. I remember the sun coming into the room, the sun landing on me and I suddenly realised that the lady who had taken the baby didn't have a nurses uniform on. I remember thinking it was okay because maybe she was a health visitor and then the more I thought about it the more I thought maybe she wasn't either.  Maybe she was a stranger and had stolen my baby. So I got myself in a complete tizz and I was running up and down the corridor looking for this women and looking for the baby. I got myself more and more panicked, then I think I saw her walking down the corridor towards me and I ran up to her and I grabbed my baby back. My baby who was completely red in the face, screaming like a banshee and so cross because he had had his heel pricked. It's hard to explain, but something inside me shifted. I literally hated the doctor who had hurt my baby with this tiny needle in his tiny little heel and I could have actually stabbed the doctor with something a lot bigger than a needle.  I just felt so protective, this wave of protective emotion and love I suppose, just swept over me.  It's hard to explain, its almost visceral it comes from somewhere inside you, near your stomach. It's hard to describe.  I don't think a mother's love is any different from a father's love. Although, I think the love that you feel for your child is very different from that which you feel for a partner, friend or parent.  It's different, and all I can say is that it's been there since day four, it's never left and it never will.           

Could you tell me a time you felt sad?

Unfortunately, it's quite an easy one for me to answer at the moment because quite recently I really let someone down. Someone I had been with for the best part of four years, absolutely loved every second of it and then one morning you wake up and everything is different. Whole world gets flipped upside down, didn't feel the same way, all very sudden and after about a month it hadn't changed. So had to call it a day, as otherwise it would just be unfair for everyone involved and it was pretty horrible. The worst part was really feeling like I had let her down, I think that's the part which made me the saddest. When you let someone down you feel like you can't do anything about it, which is the horrible part.     

Could you tell me a time you felt happy?

What I was thinking about doesn't really relate to happiness, but that's partly because I have struggled with the word happiness. I don't know what the word happiness really means. But I can tell you about a time where I was very contented, calm and it must be important to me because it's a recurring memory. I keep coming back to it at times when I think of things to relax and calm me. When I was in my late twenties, I was in my first job which had a high level of responsibility and stress with it. Every year we used to take a two week holiday and I used to take the first week just trying to relax. Often times the second week was the week I got real benefit from the holiday. I remember we were having a holiday in the Greek islands, I don't remember which Greek island it was but I do remember getting up early in the morning and walking from the hotel we were staying in up a track overlooking the harbor and the town. It was a beautiful hot summers day and as I sat next to a water trough, looking down at the scene in front of me. I hadn't seen anybody else and in the distance I heard a bell and as I sat there an old man and a donkey came towards me. All I could hear was the sound of this bell gently clanging on the donkeys neck. The old man and the donkey just came up the hill and passed me. The old man didn't say a word but he acknowledged my existence and then he walked off quietly without a word. The only thing I remember is just feeling very calm, relaxed, enjoying the view and having that person entering and leaving my life. I must have been very stressed in the lead up to that holiday and I think that switch from being very stressed out to being relaxed, calm and appreciating everything I had in life, turned on that walk I had on that morning. The imagery is something that I have returned to over the years. A moment which would be insignificant to most people is important to me as it is a recurring dream. And if I want to relax I can always close my eyes and think about that small fragment of my life.