I'm nothing special

I'm nothing special.

People think I am though. For some reason that fact I rush from hither to thither and back again being a busy bee makes people think I'm special. I couldn't hold down a nine-'til-five job at the moment, sitting at a desk for that long would send me mad(der than before). So though I might do several hours of work each day, it isn't all one type of activity. So I might do 4 hours studying, then an hour at the piano, then teach for 2 hours, then do a choir practice. All of those things use different skills, and different things to test me. But each of the skills aren't anything special. I'm a mediocre mathematician, too-ambitious-for-my-ability musician, I'm a bonkers teacher and hugely under-qualified for leading a choir. I'm not good enough to do one thing full-time, even if my brain would allow.

I think the problem is because I've fallen off the rails and then got onto a bike and am now cycling alongside the rails, people think I must be something special. Must be in some way amazing to have got all these things "going for me". Everything in my life now is a case of sheer luck and fortunate timing. My reputation meant I could teach again, somehow my boss wanted me back when I started being able to ride without stabilisers. [Enough of the metaphor, surely? Ed.] Then I decided to apply for a music job, and they gave it to me. Which I'm sure was the most stupid decision these two people made ever (apart from one buying a yellow sports car...) however they did and it was just good timing. Maths-wise, I seriously thought I would never get a degree after blowing what was the chance to change into what I wanted. Thankfully, the one helpful thing my CPN has ever done (and to be honest will ever do) was to suggest the Open University. She thought it might give me back the belief that I hadn't blown my chances completely after the university I was at suggested I needed to be stable for 6 months before attempting to return. It currently is looking like a very good option, even though I'm only half way through the degree.

I'm not special. I've just gone about life in a strange way. After being the mad teenager, some had written me off for life. To be honest I had too, for a bit. However making a life (though not the one I intended) isn't special. Everyone does that, everyone. Every single person who is alive has made their lives, yep with intervention from others, guiding from others, with knockbacks along the way, but lives are what we all do.

I'm not average, I know that, but I'm not special.


I spent my schooling being either completely shunned for being different, or elevated to a position of awe by others. It gets very lonely being like that. Where people can't talk to go for fear you would make them feel stupid, which I never would (and actually the opposite would have happened if they just spoke to me), or people can't speak to you in case you have a meltdown when with them and they don't know how to deal with it.

So, if there is a time you feel inadequate because I'm flitting from one activity to another, it isn't because I'm talented at lots of different things, it is because I need to only dabble in each thing to not get found out that I'm nothing special. I'm sure one day someone will go "But hang on, how can you do that? you aren't in anyway qualified/experienced enough to do that, you fraud." and I'm sure I am a fraud. But I'm a fraud who wangles her way through, trying to make a little difference to the people whose lives I'm involved with in a little way. Because after all, they are making their lives too, eh?

I'm nothing special. I'm lucky that life has given me in effect a second chance. Well, actually after my attempts to end it, it is more like a 7th chance or something. ;) But yeah, I'm nothing special. Just a clumsy person with wild hair and stripy socks on trying to make a life. Some days it works, others it doesn't. But that isn't anything special.