System Failure

I’m not system built.

You could call me a rebel against authority - one who does however, follow all the rules. It’s a bit of a conflict. Honest to my own detriment, I’ve learnt the subtle art of distraction, especially when there are questions I don’t want to answer and conversations that I don’t want to have. 

If I was a device I would intermittently display the message ‘system failure’, you can’t get much out of me, you can’t log in and I’m definitely not connected to any network. 

I have for a long time swam against the tide, which can be a very lonely place sometimes. I’ve tried to move with the crowd but never quite seemed to pull it off. As much as I tried, in the end I realised that I just don’t fit in with the norm. So I came to the realisation that I had to step out of the main thoroughfare and walk a quieter path. Quite poetic? No, I actually did it. On the school run I walk a route where I don’t encounter any other school mams, I quite literally walk a different path. After years of trying to fit in, I just decided not to and in doing so felt happier for it. You wouldn’t know it but if you passed me, that I was trying to hide from you. 

For many years, on repeat, I have wondered ‘why can’t I just fit in?’, ‘why do I have to be so different?’ That was until the day I asked myself what are you fitting into?’ A very simple question, again I’ll repeat to you as I did to myself ‘What system are we all fitting into?’

It goes against the grain to seek out solitude, to be quiet, to be an introvert, to stay still.  But in this space, this quiet space of stillness there is comfort. There is peace if you learn to stay still for long enough. Loneliness became my greatest teacher, I learnt how to become a good friend, one that was kind and forgiving and accepting.I learnt to become my own best friend. 

Life is sold on the bold and the daring, to keep moving, keep reaching, aim higher, be more. There is always room for improvement. Be better, speak louder, stand out. Here is the package that you have been waiting for your entire life, to be the best self that you can be. Come and get it all now while it’s on offer, time is running out. Above all - you must never ever, ever stop to contemplate.

Now. This is the time. The time that has been awarded to you to stay still. Contemplate. 

Sit with your demons. Instead of pushing them away, invite them in, they will only keep knocking. If you don’t answer the door now, they’ll only come back with a crowbar and take the handle off, so invite them in. Ask the question ‘What is it that you want?’ ‘Why do you never leave me? Have you ever asked them? Sometimes the best messengers are not always the prettiest.

Not only do I often look and act off key, but I am usually and very often late - or as I like to think just - just - on time. When I do get to the school gates, via my diversion I am filtered into the bottle neck of the winding path leading up to the school. I am the salmon swimming upstream as the rest of the mams have already collected their children. I get there just before all of the crowds have dispersed and I am not the very last Mam to pick up at home time. With outstretched arms I wave and smile at my little girl as if she has just returned from an Arctic expedition.l I catch her eye and she runs into my open arms and I smother her with kisses. Yes I am that Mam. That embarrassing one. The one that most Mams take two steps back from. 

I have experience social distancing for quite some time now. 

But do you know what, you get used to it and the ones you choose to be with and who want to be with you, well those are the ones you get to hold that little bit closer. These are the loved ones that we will hold in our arms once again. Just hold on, hold on, keep holding on. Learn your own art of staying still, be present and cherish your own company. 

Thank you for today.