Day 2 - Still Tongue Tied

Tuesday

Last night I couldn’t sleep, I was wrestling with my own mind, I suppose with my imposter feelings. I am asked to write down things at uni, that I feel like I have absolutely no authority to write about, just like I have little authority to base this blog on. My only commitment is to show up and write something each day.

Anyway, I was chastising myself for the empty page. For thoughts incomplete. For the unknown. Why is this experience so mortifying to me? If it was just talking, I would be very happy to explain what I think and why, but writing something down feels like locking myself into place. I get the gloomy sense that I need to lawyer up and have my argument bullet proof.

I know it is silly, I know I am here to learn and I also know that I will spend this morning actually putting my thoughts onto paper, I promise. Yet, if you struggle with that same inner wall, that same Grand Canyon of the mind, know that you are not alone.

It reminds me of a moment many years ago,

I was still in school and a pretty awkward teen to say the least. I was also shorter than most kids in my class and I hated that. We were still at an age where being smaller makes people think you’re younger. So, I got my sisters old heels and every day, no matter the looks from my teachers or my peers, I’d strut to school in my little black pumps. One day, I was walking home and a neighbour who went to a different school in my town approached me. She told me that the rumours about a 12 year old in heels had spread to her school too. I was honestly surprised, sure I knew there was gossip about me in my circle, but in another school? That fascinated me.

I am not telling you this to brag, but I am no stranger to controversy. Fashion is abstract, just like art. The way to communicate in those mediums is very different from language, I can hint at things, leave room for interpretation. Words on the other hand ask for clarity, for reason and justification.

I have no grand answer how to undo the knot in my mind but to show up and do it scared, to do it clumsily and to hopefully find new evidence that it is actually safe for me to share what I think.

I hope you’re doing well wherever you are

Celine