A little like you…

23rd May 202326th May 2023 The real Kaz4 Comments

I think I got my confidence from you. I’m guessing, ‘cos it doesn’t run through mum’s side of the family. Women on mum’s side are shy, anxious, still strong but worry about the world and what will happen when they’re gone. I have that less, so I guess that may come from you, at least I hope. It comforts me to think I can recognise some of your traits in me.

I’m told you were confident, you could strongly voice your point of view. You weren’t scared to speak up in a crowd and enjoyed a debate or two. Ok, so I can’t quite say that’s me, but what I will say is true, I have a strength and desire to break through this shyness and speak my truth. Maybe I wouldn’t have had that with out you as my dad. Maybe I would just have accepted that this was who I am and sat back.

I like to think It’s from you that inner determination runs through me and I hope now I’m wiser and more confident, you can see that too. I know you loved books, loved to read, poems too. I can definitely say I love the written word too.

I try and remember you from when I was young but the memories are foggy, untrustworthy. Is it a memory or a story I’ve been told about you? I’m unsure. I want them all to be memories but there are only a few of which I’m really sure.

The scent of your roll up tobacco from a Golden Virginia tin box, that you would sit and roll out with, your legs crossed. Dressed in old work jeans but with a shirt that never really seemed to match. Then I remember your smile, when a glimpse of me you’d catch.

I wish my kids got to meet you, damn I wish I had more time with you myself, but my kids would have just flourished with your guiding hand or advice instead. Maybe I would have had more strength to make changes with you by my side but I’ve learnt to harness my own courage and sometimes I just know you are there as my guide.

Almost like you are standing right behind me with a hand on my shoulder, nudging me to be brave, do the hard thing, that’s when I feel you. When I have a choice that is difficult, just willing and whispering in my ear to chose the tough road because that leads to growth and change too.

Telling me to stand strong.

Don’t give up.

Shoulders back, head up and you won’t go wrong.

I’m thankful for the parts of me that are from you. It helps me to feel you are close. Through these rough times I would have loved to have you here with me, to know you were beside me taking care of me but you are within me.

I am your daughter and that is enough ‘cos that means I’m tough!

career · Education · friendship · Inspiration · parenthood · parenthood · self care · self development · self love

High school taught me….

21st May 202322nd May 2023 The real KazLeave a comment

That I didn’t “fit in”

The older I’ve become, the more I wonder if we all feel this way in some respect during those difficult teenage years. Does anyone actually feel totally accepted and comfortable in their own skin and social group throughout their teenage years?

For me, my home life seemed “different” to others. My dad had died when I was 8 years old and my mum was deaf. Both of those things made me self conscious at parents evenings. Mum couldn’t communicate like the other parents, dad wasn’t there. Two things that were enough to make me feel I stood out like a sore thumb. In reality, I didn’t. No one really took any notice or cared enough about my situation at home. Everyone has something that makes them feel like they “stand out” or don’t quite “fit in”

On top of what felt to me like huge flashing beacons of difference, I was also incredibly shy and quiet. This again, created for me a huge insecurity that no one wanted to be around me. I was too quiet, awkward, no fun to be around. Of course none of which was true but that narrative took residence in my mind for a very long time. My shyness often led to situations where if I felt uncomfortable or was put in a situation where I was forced to speak up in front of many others I would go bright red in the face. This would exacerbate the more anxious and self conscious I became. I would feel like I wanted the ground to swallow me up so I could just disappear from the embarrassment of my obvious anxiety and discomfort that everyone could now physically see.

Over the years, I learnt to control this red ripening face reaction to my discomfort. I began to realise that it wasn’t as noticeable as I felt it was to others and those who did notice really didn’t care that much. This took away a lot of my anxiety and fear around this happening and allowed me to take control over how I reacted.

What I took away from High School wasn’t really a great education, I underperformed and under achieved. It wasn’t a supportive friendship group as I had a better group of friends outside of school, than inside its gates. It wasn’t a sense of belonging or safety.

For me school was just a somewhere I felt unable to find my place in, I wasn’t really a neat piece of the schools tapestry. I didn’t belong with the cool kids, because I just wasn’t cool enough. I didn’t belong with the nerdy kids, because I just wasn’t nerdy enough. I didn’t belong with the sporty kids, because I was rubbish at sport. I didn’t fit in any box reliably enough, so I existed between them all. Never really making good friends in any but being around for lots of them.

So school really only taught me to feel I didn’t “fit in”.

Inspiration · self care · self development

Home is……..

7th Apr 202313th Apr 2023 The real Kaz2 Comments

a place where special memories are made.

What is home for you? Is it where you live now? Or is where you grew up always the place that pulls at your heart strings and deserves the title of home? Home for me is more about the feeling and people around me than a particular building but much of that is because my current home is the one I’ve never really settled into and knew my marriage was on the rocks the day we moved in so now it feels like a pawn in the game of divorce.

My childhood home in North London – Harrow has the fondest memories for me and I still feel my roots are there despite many friends leaving and moving away, as well as myself and my family. My mum though still resides on the estate where I grew up and when I visit I feel comfortable and just a sense of “home”. My mum lives opposite the primary school I went to and the community centre I frequented weekly at “kids club”. Will it still feel like home, when my mum is no longer there? I don’t know. The area has changed, the people have changed, the community is more disjointed but my memories of a fabulous childhood remain. Outdoor summers, manhunt and British Bulldog, the ice cream van and coming home when it started to get dark. It was a childhood that felt free and full, which I’m thankful that I experienced before the advent of social media, mobile phones and all that goes along with it.

My childhood home I can remember in detail. The decor, fireplace that I would sit in front of with my sister and melt our chocolate digestives, leaving chocolate marks on the bars. The toilet downstairs that I would be so scared to use in the middle of the night. I’d come down, flush and run like crazy so the boogie man didn’t get me! Neighbours knocking on the door to borrow 50ps to put in the electric meter daily, everyone helping each other out and knowing who lived in every house on the estate. Community was important. Life was simple. Am I romanticising my memories? Do I have rose tinted spectacles on when I describe life growing up and my home on the estate in Harrow? Maybe. I’m sure there were a lot of hardships too but as a child I don’t recall them. I had no real worries and isn’t that what your childhood memories should be? So I guess I’m blessed.

The bungalow we live in now needs a lot of work but more significantly there has been a lot of heartache here. That has tarred my memories and probably how I feel about the years we have spent here. When the time comes to sell and move into a home of my own I’m sure I’ll feel a sense of excitement as well as trepidation at doing that alone. The excitement is tangible though and I look forward to making a home for myself and my kids that works for us and that is looked after and welcoming for family and friends because for me that’s what makes the memories and happy times and turns those four walls from a house into a “home”. As much as we can love a building and pour some of ourselves into the decoration and upkeep, a home is the memories made by the people within it, that is what I believe and what is imprinted on my memories so fondly from my childhood. It isn’t the “things” we had in our house or how great it looked, its the time and experiences with my family and friends that made it special.