Don't be Such an Egg

So I emerged into adulthood, feeling a bit like an egg.

I had some amazing life skills that I've been very grateful for: I was diplomatic, I could navigate through tricky relationships and situations with ease. I was confident and together. I was very very tuned in to other people's personalities and emotions. I was fiercely independent. I liked my own company, and felt like I didn't need other people much. I didn't have that many friends, but I didn't really want or need them. I was quite serious -- having fun wasn't really a priority. I was fairly well read, and I could write and speak articulately. And I was very very interested in finding out the actual, real meaning of life. The truth. I really wanted to know the truth.

That was the egg shell part of me. That was the part of me that left home, went to university, travelled all over the world, lived in different countries, had cool jobs, had my own business. I got away from that family stuff, built my own life, and had it all together.

Inside that egg was a squishy vulnerable centre that I did my best to keep out of the way, because it was kind of pathetic, terrified, mystified, and mortified. It was a real liability, a huge contrast to the egg shell, and it was very very uncomfortable. Mostly I just tried to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there, so I didn't have to deal with it.

I got a lot of approval for being a tough egg, that person who had her life together. I was convinced nobody would want to have a bar of the egg yolk, the emotional wreck me. That "who do you think you are?" girl.

So she more or less disappeared. For a while anyway. Oh yes, and I keep forgetting this, but it's important. She was slowly but surely becoming boozer. Not a haha hilarious boozer. Just a quiet one. But a boozer nonetheless.

I'll get back to her, but I just want to write some more about mum, and tell you what I know about her father.

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