Bitch?

“Who is that obnoxious woman?”  In an unguarded (beer-fuelled) moment, an acquaintance of about a fortnight revealed that this was their first impression of me.  Ouch.  Obviously I chuckled and pretended that I was able to take the comment in the spirit of friendship in which it was given, but man, that smarted.

We all know that first impressions count; I check my teeth for greenery before a job interview and generally try not to leave the house with food down my front.  These physical things are fairly easily managed, but is it possible to control the impression our personality makes quite as closely?  Should we?

In first encounters with new people it is impossible, and probably undesirable, to reveal the full complexity of one’s character; we present a two-dimensional caricature which will be fleshed out as and if the relationship continues.  What you see will depend on the context of our meeting and what we both want from it.  If we’re meeting as professionals, I’ll want you to think I’m competent, fairly serious and reliable – at this point it’s not necessary for you to know about my bacon addiction and propensity to down Sambuca like it’s the end of the world.  If I fancy you, I’ll be striving (probably unsuccessfully) to come across as witty, intelligent and slightly frisky so I’ll try not to bore you with my views on our education system.  If I’m drunk, I’ll think I’m hilarious and you’ll think I’m an idiot.  The fact remains, however, that I AM all these things; competent, fairly serious about my job, reliable, witty, intelligent, slightly frisky and often an idiot.  There’s no acting or fakery going on here, just different facets of Karen being allowed to sneak through the armour first.

One of the many joys of growing older is realising that we cannot, and should not, be all things to all people.  Chances are that if you think I’m obnoxious I probably have a similar opinion of you, and on a planet of 7 billion people that’s absolutely fine, there are others for us both to get along with.  

Am I a bitch because I won’t pretend to be something I’m not?  Because I won’t pretend to agree with you or find your offensive views funny?  Because I speak as I find and tell it how it is?  Fine.  Woof.  But the thing about bitches is that they may be scary when they snarl and are handled incorrectly but when you understand them fully they are rewarding, affectionate and fun to be around.  Just don’t try to tickle my tummy until we’re fully acquainted.

Wishing

Clearing out my filing cabinet recently, I came across this list that I wrote and promptly forgot about in 2001, entitled simply ‘WISHES’.  In case you can’t read my handwriting, here they are (faithfully transcribed – dreadful grammar included).

Live on small island – samos / jersey / sing. etc.

Own boat.

See northern lights.  (or southern lights).

Travel 1^st class.

Eat massaged cow.

Have uplift.

Lose 4 stone.

Three of these things have inadvertently been crossed off and I’m still fairly keen on achieving the other four, at least for a while.  I like to think I’ve grown and developed in the last 11 years but it turns out that I’m still fundamentally the same person; I’m not sure quite how to feel about this.

What would I add if I wrote the same list now?  Well, these past wishes seem to neatly fall into categories, each representing a specific desire in a general area of life.

First is the ‘where to live’ wish.  All my life I’ve wanted to live somewhere with a sweeping view.  Living in a field on a slight rise I have this one nailed.  The only way to improve it would be to have some water in my eye line; the sea, a river or a lake would add an extra dimension to the vastness of green stretching in every direction from my home.

‘Stuff to own’ comes next.  I wouldn’t say no to a boat, obviously, but actually on a list of wishes this is the only one where I’ve really nothing to add – I have everything I need already.  If it were ‘stuff to have’ then honesty forces me to admit that I’d like someone to share it with, though is that something I wish for with the associated sense of pining and longing?  Not really.  Not yet.

‘Things to see / places to go’ is the section that I could fill pages with; South America, Great Barrier Reef, Great Wall of China, New Zealand, Vietnam, a desert island paradise, West Africa, Alaska, the list goes on, and on, and on…  A shorter one would be places I have no desire to go; Casablanca (HATED it).  End of list.

Travelling 1^st class is one that I have technically achieved, though Virgin Trains form Manchester to London isn’t really what I was thinking of when this was added, so this one can stay exactly as it is.  I can’t envisage a time or situation in which this will ever be possible, so it stays.  I am ever wishful.

Kobe beef was an anti-climax when I finally got the opportunity to try it (though this is possibly because it will have been fake – I’d love to try it in Japan).  Delicious, don’t get me wrong, but three times as delicious as the other steaks on the menu?  Nope.  So what ‘thing to eat’ would take its place on the wish list 2012?  Anything someone else has cooked for me because they love me and they think I’ll love it.  I don’t care if that sounds like a bit of a cop out – I am pretty much in a position to buy whatever I fancy to eat so it’s the intangible part of the eating experience which becomes sought after.

The last two are both to do with how I look, and it’s pretty representative of my priorities at 24 that this section gets double the wishes of the others.  It’s pretty representative of my acceptance of ageing that if I had to fill this slot on a wish list now it’s be something totally unattainable like having hair that doesn’t go grey or a self-maintaining bikini line.

It’s interesting to me that there’s nothing on my list about my career – I was days away from starting my teacher training when I wrote this, so I guess I thought I had it all wrapped up.  I’m still teaching, so my 24 year old self was probably right not to waste a wish on that one.  There’s also nothing about relationships – I was two years into what would turn out to be a 13 year relationship so didn’t think that area needed help either.

I guess the message is that whilst things may change on the surface, core values don’t migrate much from where our adult moral compass deposits them.  I wonder if I’ll still feel the same as I ride my boat to my island?

Private School Girl

I blame Enid Blyton.  As a child I devoured her books, becoming particularly enchanted by the boarding school worlds she created in the Malory Towers and Naughtiest Girl series.  This combination of tomfoolery, midnight feasts and loyal friendships seemed right up my street so obviously I asked my parents if I could go to boarding school.

Tempted though I’m sure they were, they didn’t pack me off straightaway but when I was doing my GCSEs they said that if I was serious about the whole boarding school thing I could go away for my A levels.  A necessary condition was imposed and achieved when I earned a scholarship for half my fees so off I went at age 16 to live in a middle-ranking school for my two years of sixth form.

My education up to that point had been entirely within the state sector and all my ideas about private schools and the people who went to them were a result of the stereotypes delivered through mainstream media.  I expected plummy accents, sneering attitudes and a great view of the underside of everyone’s chins as they looked down their noses at me for being from a comprehensive school.

Rocking up on my first day with a nose stud and a massive chip on my shoulder it quickly became clear that I was the one with the attitude problem.  As I recall I was one of only a couple of new pupils who’d come from the state sector but as it turned out, the only person who thought it remotely relevant was me; everyone else was far more interested in killing time until the parents left so that they could go and have a smoke behind the pavilion.

Going to boarding school for sixth form meant that I experienced both worlds at an age where I kind of understood what I was looking at.  Obviously my experiences are based on one comprehensive and one boarding school, I’m sure other people in other places see different things, but here are some of my observations.

Private school is less tribal.  It’s almost like it’s one big tribe, whereas my comp was much more cliquey.  All the girls at sixth form wore their beautiful, swishy hair in the same way (a pony tail not quite pulled through the band – they all looked to me like they’d just got out of the shower and not sorted their hair out) and the boys all had Tintin quiffs.  Strange brands I’d never seen before were everywhere and rugby shirts were definitely the order of the day.

There was a new language to learn; rusticated, gated, prep, san, exeat, master and the one that caused me the most bother – tab.  It took me a while to realise that it meant cigarette so for the first day or two I thought everyone had a massive LSD problem.  Oops.  None of the teachers, sorry masters, were called by their names either; nicknames abounded and learning which could be used to their faces and which couldn’t was a perilous tightrope that all the new students had to walk.

Was my education better there?  Well, my A level results certainly do not remotely reflect what I now know to be my abilities – but educational success is not measured solely in terms of exam results.  I learned a pretty big lesson about not prejudging and living in close and constant proximity with others was a timely tolerance-building exercise.  Without that school I would never have had the opportunity to sing evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral and St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, I’d probably never have gone to an opera and going from a school that put on a single production each year to one that churned them out at rate of more than one a term provided a wonderful outlet for my dramatic (aka showy-off) tendencies.  Students arrived at the school from all over the world and from a massive range of backgrounds – mixing with this huge range of people, and their families, gave me a confidence that has stayed with me into adulthood.  (I am also able to handle larger quantities of alcohol than my size and gender would suggest – this is very definitely a legacy from my boarding school days.)

This post was going to be bit of a rant, fighting back at those who lambast private school pupils as though they’ve been handed something on a plate.  I didn’t get great A level results because I didn’t work hard enough; my parents paying half of my fees didn’t guarantee anything.  It turned into a more affectionate reminiscence, which is telling in itself.  It’s not the right avenue for everyone, but for me the combination of educational experiences provided the best and broadest foundation I could possibly get.  Toodle-pip!

Ex-Fatty

I'm the one on the left.

Twelve days after this photograph was taken my apparently healthy Dad dropped dead one morning at the age of 60.  He swam regularly and hadn’t smoked since a heart attack almost 25 years previously.  He was, however, obese.  He had been retired for only a few months and had yet to fulfil any of his retirement goals.  His two youngest daughters got married without him to walk them down the aisle and he never met his beautiful grandchildren.  All because he was fat.

I started university as a size 10-12.  Catered halls, pound-a-pint, take-away and eventually the comfort of a long term relationship saw me swell to a size 18-20 over the next 4 years.  I wish I’d nipped it in the bud sooner.  I wish I hadn’t told myself that ‘you only need a 14 because the fit is tighter in this shop’ – it’s not, you’re fatter, and before you know it you’ll have to buy a size 14 in every shop.  You will then go through the same farcical internal monologue at 16, 18 and 20.   I also wish someone had told me that even if you eventually manage to lose weight your body will never look as good as it could have – all that skin has to go somewhere, after all.

Dad’s death made me realise that I loved life more than I loved food so I decided to do something about it.  When I started dieting I weighed 15st 5lb; at 5’6’’ this gave me a BMI of 34.7 and was a serious problem.  I got myself to a healthy weight and started exercising and bugger me if it wasn’t the single best thing I ever did.

I thought I was happy when I was fat.  To a certain extent I was, but I now think back to all the ‘what to wear’ crises, all the sighs in changing rooms as nothing ever looked quite as good as I wanted it to and all the jealousy I tried to pretend I didn’t feel for my dearest friends who were slimmer and more attractive than me.  We all know (or are) people who are obsessed with shoes; I never understood that until I got fat.  Suddenly, shoes were the only clothing items I could buy that didn’t force me to confront my size; I could wear anonymous black outfits and feel like I was making an effort with good shoes.  A wonderful shoe wardrobe is possibly the only good thing to come out of my obesity, sadly I lost a shoe size when I lost weight and many of my beauties are now too big (heel grippers stuck in the back rescued a few but bigger-footed friends did well out of my weight loss).

A happy fatty or not, I can tell you unreservedly that I am happier now.  It is unfathomable to me that anyone could be happier overweight than they would be at a healthy weight.  Losing weight was a fascinating journey, with small yet significant milestones cropping up in the most unexpected places.  I remember sitting in the staffroom and going to cross my legs – they stayed where I put them instead of sliding apart due to my gargantuan thighs.  Such a trivial thing yet momentous for me.  As was the time I was driving down the motorway and suddenly realised that my elbows were not knocking my waist every time I turned the wheel but swishing past it instead.  The first time I travelled on an aeroplane after losing weight and had fresh air between my hips and both armrests, rather than being wedged in for the duration, was a revelation; going to the cinema became similarly comfortable.  I could walk around my classroom without having to get the kids to squash themselves into the desks to make room, there was a purpose to working out (what’s the point in trying to tone your muscles if the thick layer of blubber on top of them is going to wobble regardless?) and I wasn’t constantly doing that fat-person thing of readjusting my clothes to make sure that my rolls were covered.

Thanks to Peter Worth - www.peterworth.com

Losing weight is hard and the battle to keep it off is unending (and not always won), but the rewards are undoubtedly worth it.  To actually feel good when I get dressed up nicely, instead of just not feeling awful; to know that no one is judging me for my size; to feel in control of my own body; to feel strong and confident; to feel the pride in shedding almost 5 stone; to receive the compliments for this; to know that I stand a greater chance of living long enough to fulfil my dreams and spend more time with the people I love – who wouldn’t want this?  There’s always an excuse.  It’s just an excuse.  Stop making excuses.  Eat less, do more, reap the rewards.

35

Landmark birthdays have come and gone.  As an August baby my 18^th birthday was something of an anti-climax, having celebrated about a hundred others and gone through the far more significant event of leaving school by the time it rolled around.  21 came and went during my summer holidays from university and my 30^th was spent alone in Morocco.  Reflection didn’t play a part in any of these ‘milestones’, however as I turn 35 I find myself taking stock.

According to the Telegraph newspaper, middle age begins at 35.  Ouch.  Middle age is all about sprawling paunches, HRT and gardening, right?  No.  Not my middle age.

I am the fittest, slimmest and strongest that I’ve ever been, putting me in the absolute best physical shape of my life.  I can climb mountains, skate marathons and feel no trepidation at taking on fit students two decades younger than me in physical challenges.  The Spartan Sprint on Sunday will be challenging, sure, but not insurmountable – 10 years ago I wouldn’t even have considered entering.  It’s not all physical joy; recovery takes longer as the years go by and gravity is an unrelenting enemy, but the mental strength that I’ve developed as I’ve aged is more than a match for the physical changes.

My career started on a high – my first job involved an element of management responsibility and consequent pay – and I doggedly and fairly successfully chased promotions for several years.  I remember being about 26 and wondering how I’d cope with the crushing disappointment of abject failure if I was still on the same rung of the ladder at 30.  Well I’m now 35 and technically lower than ever, having made a conscious decision to eschew management in the pursuit of happiness.  This was the right decision.  Growing older has helped me to discover what fulfils me and it turns out that an impressive job title with commensurate stress is not it.  For me, doing my job well and having enough energy left over to really enjoy the time and money it provides me with means I am on the way to a fulfilled life, rather than just a fulfilling career.  I am professionally respected and my opinion is sought and valued – that’s enough for me.

An ever-developing self-knowledge means that I have a fairly good idea what I want and don’t want.  It’s only when I look back that I see how influenced I was by those around me when I was younger; I don’t think that’s a problem, I think it’s how we explore and discover, but I like that nowadays I am confident enough to be my own person.  If I want to swim against the tide then I bloomin’ well will.  The freedom that comes with not feeling the need to ‘fit in’ is a joyous one that only comes with time.

So as I enter ‘middle age’, how do I feel about it?  Pretty good, actually.  I can drink until I fall over with 20 year olds one night, discuss my clicky knees with equally middle aged friends the next before enjoying a fiery debate with those 30 years my senior later on.  It’s the best of everything, the middle of everything; by definition the place from which one can see the most, making it the age at which the bigger picture is most clear and all things are equally accessible.  Bring it on!

Summer Adviser

I have observed that fascinating species ‘British Woman’ dealing with the sunshine recently, both in her native Britain and as she migrates south to Spain, and after hours gathering data I feel compelled to offer the following.

Sunshine may lift your spirits but it does not do the same for your breasts

I spent many hours people-watching at the British seaside on a scorching day and I can categorically state that the only people who should wear strapless outfits are bridesmaids and supermodels.  I understand the desire to avoid tan lines (this blog is too short to venture into the clear illogicality therefore of teaming a normal bra with a strapless top) but the judicious use of SPF50 or a cotton wrap does the job in a much less dangly fashion than going braless. 

Likewise, there are underwear solutions available for every type of vest – only the very young or the very flat-chested should ever leave the house sans brassiere.  No one wants to see middle-aged melons drifting about, midriff bound, nipples skewiff as they pendulously lumber from side to side.  If tempted to embrace ‘commando torso’, first ask yourself ‘if I were a fembot, where would my lasers be pointing?’  If you are simply scoring a path in the pavement a couple of metres in front of your feet – strap those puppies up.

Sun burns

This does not mean, however, that you have to allow yourself to be burned by it.  Falling trees crush, but when the cry of ‘TIMBEEEERRRR’ alerts you to the potential danger, you run.  Why would anyone want to look like a barber’s pole, red and white stripes recalling an embarrassed zebra?  Sunburn is dangerous, uncomfortable and unsightly.  For some reason, many treat it as something of an inevitability, despite the links between sunburn and skin cancer being pretty clearly established; seeing sunburned people continuing to expose themselves is, to my eyes, the beach version of the hospital patient wheeling their drip outside so they can have a cigarette.

Magazines lie

When they say you can ‘drop two dress sizes in two weeks’ or ‘get bikini ready in a month’ they are probably telling the truth.  However, YOU won’t do it.  YOU will cheat and make excuses and start tomorrow; even if you do succeed in streamlining yourself you’ll have put it all back on by the end of your holiday, and probably added a bit more too.  With that self-knowledge, buy your holiday wardrobe in the size you are, not the size you want to be.  Clothes that fit look better than those that don’t – particularly if you are one of the many women who insist on jettisoning your smalls at the first sign of sunshine.

If you don’t believe me; believe Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Crushing

My first proper crush was Ben.  He was tall, dark and impossibly handsome with a smile that could melt brick.  I was 11, acutely aware of being neither cool nor hot, with a dodgy perm and a Philip Schofield fixation; I didn’t stand a chance.  That didn’t stop me daydreaming about him constantly, of course, and ‘accidentally’ ending up in the same place as him at break time every day.  Unattainability is the soil in which crushes are nurtured, so with ample supplies of the fertiliser of unrequited love, this one grew and grew.

I don’t remember how I moved on, but move on I did, into that strange teenage netherworld of ‘going out’ with ‘boyfriends’ which involved neither going out nor being friends and often lasted only a matter of hours – beginning with ‘my mate fancies you’ and ending with ‘my mate says you’re dumped’.  It’s entirely possible there were boyfriends with whom I never shared so much as a glance as the relationship was conducted entirely through third parties.  Maybe this technique is worth revisiting?

At 14 I met Mark.  He was older, cooler and gorgeous.  He played the guitar and had long hair and brown eyes like pools of delicious chocolate.  I thought he was some kind of god, which was irrelevant because he didn’t care what anyone thought of him.  Although our relationship lasted over a year it is only with hindsight that I see it falls into ‘crush’ territory; my feelings were pretty much one way and to this day I have no real idea why he was with me.  Though we spent every spare moment at school walking around in circles and holding hands, he went to parties without me, to gigs without me, even out with other girls without me.  I was so blinded by the force of my crush and so pathetically grateful for the morsels of attention he threw my way that I convinced myself he loved me and accepted ‘us’ the way we were – the unattainability factor being still strong, even though we were together.

Richard entered my life when I was 20.  He was worldly, employed and incredibly good-looking; I was smitten – what chance did I stand with such a catch?  The unattainability factor was high with this one.  Somehow, I wore him down and we were married 5 years later.  9 years down the line and, sadly, we are getting divorced.  It’s almost as though my crush retreated exactly as he became more permanent.

Now, as a 34 year old single woman, everyone seems out of my league and therefore my crushing has gotten completely out of control.  I build imaginary futures in my head with virtual strangers and obsess over unravelling the hidden messages behind every nuanced look or comment.  Ironically, I am perfectly happy being single – it’s not like I’m some desperado, hunting for my next husband – so the completeness with which this man-fixation has overwhelmed me is nonsensical and unwelcome. 

So what’s the answer?  Who knows?  I think crushes are the emotional equivalent of the common cold – everyone gets them in varying degrees of intensity and there is no known cure, they just ease off slowly and suddenly you realise they’re gone.  In the meantime, I need to discover the emotional equivalent of Lemsip; I think the Olympics and the plethora of half-naked demi-gods might just do it.  If anyone wants me for the next few weeks, I'll be watching TV...