Like all the quizzes on FB I read the result, smiled & reposted, but then I re-read the blurb that came with it, and I have to say it pretty much nailed me.
'You are so informal, that all the informal workplaces are too formal for you. You're full of bright ideas, and now is the time to share them with the world through your own radio station. Don't be shy to express the extreme parts of your personality, you won't believe how many people are the same nowadays. And guess what? No one can tell you what to do, it's your own Independent Radio. It's time for you to be heard!'
I may not end up with my own independent radio station (though it's not out of the question), but what reading this did do was make me think about bits of myself that I've hidden away over the past few years trying to conform, unsuccessfully, to the 'real world'.
I was never meant to live in the real world!
I am a quarter of an inch below 6 foot tall, which whilst growing up usually made me the tallest girl (sometimes tallest child) in my class. I was 5 foot 6 and a half inches tall at 11, and when you are head, shoulders (and sometimes waist) above all the other girls that you know then you tend to be treated differently by others, which makes you think of yourself as 'different'.
Being this tall meant that I was always sat with the boys at the back of the class (except in Mrs Bullough's class where, due to a bit of naughtiness, I was put right under her nose with fellow disrupter Timothy Lee). All of this meant I didn't really develop a knack for being girly, tomboy is how I was described, which didn't stand me in great stead for dealing with the hormonal girly-girls in the ALL GIRL secondary school I ended up at. Different again!
Then there was the odd name!
My first name is Karen Lee, yes two separate names, with no hyphen, of which one of them can be quite easily be mistaken for a surname. Well from as early as I can remember I have had a struggle getting people to understand that Lee is NOT my middle name or my last name, it is actually part of my first name.
Teachers especially used to drive me bananas when they read out the register and called out Karen Wood (as I was then), I used to ignore them as that isn't my name, and when I duly explained it was my first name they told me that I wasn't correct as it had no hyphen.
Well my responses were along the lines of "Excuse me, I think I know what my own name is, and so do my parents, the name registry, the passport office and my birth certificate, so my first name IS Karen Lee, and if you can't understand that you shouldn't be a teacher."
In the real world you probably aren't meant to stand your ground like this with teachers, you should learn to go along with the flow, but not me. Different.
I'm not saying different is better, in fact being different has made life pretty tough. Going with the flow really is the easier path, sticking your head out can sometimes get it chopped off, but being 'different' has made me an independently minded individual who won't buy an item of clothing just because the label is fashionable, who will speak my mind freely, whether my opinion is the norm or not, and I always investigate to see if the crowd is really worth following, instead of blindly going with the flow.
This is what makes me, me.Going back to the start of this piece, that little paragraph is making me think, so on May 31st I'm closing my 'normal formal' business (it's not a knee-jerk reaction, I did already have it planned) that has made me miserable for the last three out of the six years that I've run it, and then I will spend a some time hunting for the informal, bright idea'd, world curious ME that I used to be, and if you feel the loss of your real self too I wish you all some Happy Hunting!
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