Being Around People Makes Me Lose Myself | Lockdown Lessons

You don’t need me to tell you how weird 2020 has been so far, surely?

For those of us in the UK, it seems that some kind of normalcy is desperately trying to come back to us since shops, pubs and restaurants have reopened.

While this has not gone without it’s faults, it was a good excuse for me to try live life how I used to – and how I thought I still wanted to – these past few weeks, along with other reckless folk.

However, lockdown has actually been kind of a blessing in disguise if I’m being totally honest.

Sure, it’s been difficult and upsetting a lot of the time but the fact that it has also given us a lot of time is something I’m finding myself become more and more grateful for as our government pushes it to end.

This period of my life has encouraged a lot of introspection and time to generally just meditate within myself in ways that I would normally never do.

Even though you know I love overthinking every little detail about my life, lockdown has made me put a dedicated focus on to that. In fact, I think a lot of us have been reevaluating things and coming to new conclusions about the way we want to our lives in this new world – which will hopefully be just around the corner! – to be.

WHO AM I?

One thing I have noticed about myself is how much of a flake I am.

Now, I don’t really like to encourage myself or others to talk negatively about themselves, but that is kind of the best way to describe it. I’m a flake.

Flake

A flake is someone who generally makes plans with you, promises to do things with or for you but can never seem to follow through. When confronted with their behavior they usually get defensive and run away.

– Urban Dictionary 

Since spending even more time by myself during throughout the past few months, my behaviour when around other people is much more noticeable to me.

As lockdown is being forced to come to a close, I’m spending more time with people outside of my family. An yes, it’s very weird! Every event, meet-up and shopping trip feels naughty, like it’s something I shouldn’t be doing (probably because I shouldn’t...)

Not only does it feel weird in terms of the current situation, but it’s also making me feel weird about myself.

You see, I’ve noticed that I become a different person with everyone I’m around.

That’s why I think I’m a flake.

Okay, sometimes the changes aren’t super drastic, hence why it’s taken me so long to notice them, but I’ve noticed that I’m never consistent.

I’m a different person with my family as I’m a different person with my friends as I’m a different person with my partner as I’m a different person with myself as I’m a different person on the phone as I’m a different person over text…

There are a lot of different versions of me, which makes it hard to figure out who I really am.

AND THE PROBLEM IS..?

I know people are multi-dimensional and you can hold various contrasting ideals at one time, but I feel like there should always be some line of consistency there that makes you you.

Sure, I could just be overthinking this as always. But as you can see from my recent record of posts, in which this blog has been abandoned for over a month now, I haven’t been feeling myself and I think this is why.

I’m finding myself become very tired and irate at the moment, because I’m trying to balance all of these different versions of myself when I’ve had months of just being one person.

As lockdown seems to be drawing to a close (this time around) I’m wanting to do all of the things I missed out on, which obviously includes various other people being there too – which also means these various versions of me have to turn up as well.

That’s not to say that if you know me in real life, you don’t really know me because that’s not true!

Perhaps it’s an introvert thing, perhaps it’s just me overthinking but I think I just need to get back to myself. Prioritise myself once again to figure out what really matters to me.

Of course, my relationships matter to me which is why this is such a big deal for me at the moment. But I think I also need to figure out which aspects of these I really want to prioritise and what I’m just doing out of habit, because then I can let shit go.

“Live more from intention and less from habit”

– Amy Rubin Flett

What is lockdown teaching you?

Speak soon,

Rachael.

Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash