growing pains

Moving abroad on my own was never going to be easy. In my head, things would have fallen into place sooner than what they have and coming to terms with the fact they are at a stand still has been quite a mental anguish to carry around.

“We’d like to offer you the job”. Yes. Things are looking up. I make my way to my induction carrying hopes for the future, optimistic. I sit in a room with people also ready to kick start a new chapter of their life. “Next, we’re going to goto the uniform room where you’ll be fitted”. Usually, the idea of trying on clothes in general is quite a daunting thought being a plus sized woman although those words don’t bother me this time, not like they should have.

“Here, try this on, it’s a size small” Is this a joke? “I don’t think it will fit, is there anything bigger?” I feel the shame brewing in my gut, the embarrassment clenching at my chest. She flicks through the dresses to find something bigger as I stand there feeling disgusted in myself, subtly looking around hoping no one can hear this conversation. “Here, this is a medium, we don’t have anything bigger”. “I don’t think it’s going to fit” “Just try, just try” she says while gesturing me to the change room. I carry the two dresses and a heart full of dread in and immediately feel that optimism slip away. The dress doesn’t make it over my thighs and I immediately drop it to the floor as if the sooner I remove this stupid piece of clothing from my body, the sooner I won’t have to feel this shame. The shame stays. I walk out to the attendant, handing her back the dresses. “They didn’t fit” like I said they wouldn’t. She calls her superior over to explain the situation. Behind me, two girls from my induction are coming out in their dresses, excited, turning around in the mirror to see how it looks on them at every angle, “Oh my god it looks so cute, I love it!” That must be nice. I look back and see the superior approaching us. She is told that there are no sizes for me. She looks to me, up and down my body and announces a regretful “oh”. The shame in my gut and embarrassment in my chest merge together and make their way up my throat. “You’re just going to have to sort your own thing out, we don’t have your size”. I sit waiting for the other girls to finish their fitting, feeling like a literal sack of potatoes. I want to leave. My face starts to ache as I hold back the shame and embarrassment that has now made its way to my tear ducts. I make my way out of the building when it is time to go and as soon as I open the door, the door to my tear ducts tears open and I feel the tears streaming down my face. I want to sob, I want to crawl into a ball on this ground right here and shrivel up into the shame I feel. You thought it was going to be that easy? That everything could fall into place like that? I need to make my way home and I need to get there fast. The world feels like it’s closing in on me and I need to feel safe. I walk 20 minutes through the city, trying to convince myself it’s not worth my tears but having no control over the fact that they continue to make their way down my red cheeks anyway. A headache forms from holding in the sadness that so desperately wants to scream. “How did it go?” my friend Fern messages me. I message her back, tell her how awful I’m feeling but a problem shared is not a problem halved right now, she sends me love and support, but I’m still just here in this city surrounded by strangers while I feel these emotions cry out of me. The tears keep falling. You thought it was going to be that easy? About 5 minutes from home, I have this urge to cross the street and walk on the other side of the road and so I do. I look up and there is Fern, sat at the bus stop, what? I just sit down next to her, with wet eyes and a heavy load of emotion. Drowning in all of it, a life boat was thrown to me. We hugged, sat for 5 minutes and both spoke about the things that were hurting us that day. “Wait a minute, this is so weird, how have I just ran into you right now?”. We part ways and I immediately feel this sense of lightness, as if I left half of the heaviness I was carrying behind with her. Thankyou life, I needed that more than I realized. I emailed the company to let them know I would not be continuing employment with them and that the incident had left me deflated and disappointed. I tried to shake the emotions it had left me by accepting that no matter how much work I do on myself, how much I convince myself that the size of my body does not determine my worth, does not determine my place in this world, that there will always be external things that are going to hurt me that I cannot control. This was an uncomfortable thing to accept.

The job search continues and with each passing day, I begin to feel more and more disappointed in myself, in my future, the future I spent a long time day dreaming of. The days go on and my bank balance looks unhealthier as they do. It has been a cycle of finding small amounts of hope to cling onto and watching them slip through my hands. “You’re exactly what we’re looking for here, I’ll be in contact this afternoon” Never to be heard from again.

Amongst all the pain in the outside of my comfort zone, there are these beautiful moments. I sit on the beach alone to watch the sunset, smoking a joint, surrounded by groups of friends, families, dogs and their owners, enjoying the sunset together. Together. I don’t feel envy, I feel hope, that one day I will sit here and watch the sunset in company too. For now, it is just me and this heart I am trying to keep looking forward, no matter how many knocks it takes. I look over to the mountains that stand in front of a pink sky, they look just like a painting I did in the peaks of lockdown last year, with the words I wrote painted on in black cursive; “Always look forward to what’s beyond the horizon, but never forget to remember how far you’ve come”. I frowned to myself in disbelief, that these mountains look just like my painting and that the message on it was just the one I needed to hear.

In the peaks of my stress, I keep hearing this voice in my head. “Haven’t I taught you anything? Trust.” I take out my phone to write it down in my phone, as if it’s a message from my future self. I close my conscious mind off and allow my fingers to write down what I need to hear. I finish the sentence and read it back to myself, “Haven’t I taught you anything? Trust. I know it’s hard. I know you’re in this place of uncertainty and the path ahead is unknown. Hasn’t it always worked out though? In beautiful ways? In ways you couldn’t expect but adored? You’ve never been let down when you commit to yourself, not completely. Sure you’ve felt flat, disheartened, unmotivated but have you ever truly been let down when you followed your heart. No. Haven’t I taught you anything? Trust.”

For the moment, I sit in this place, somewhere between doubt, feeling hope slip further away in every plan that falls through while also trusting that things will fall into place how they’re supposed to. It’s bizarre feeling that somewhere in the future there is a version of myself that understands why everything is happening how it is now but presently having no idea what is going on and how that will all unfold. Getting comfortable outside of your comfort zone is hard, harder than I remember but my heart lead me here and whenever I have trusted that path, it has always lead me to the most beautiful places. I am learning to hold onto trust in the ache of these growing pains.

If you read my blogs and enjoy them, please do reach out and send your love, it is always appreciated. - Holly