self confidence

The Boogeyman exists.

~ AnnaB ~ Leave a comment

I’ll never forget that sinister laugh in a darkened room. It sent chills down my spine, it brought goosebumps out on my arms, I could feel the hairs on my head stand up. I was gripped in panic, fear, surprise. Any negative feeling you could ever imagine being gripped by, I was feeling it. But that sinister laugh in the darkness is also the thing that saved me. I was 20 years old, a university student, and I was the only one home in our back-section, student-flat property. It was after midnight, with no hope of anyone else being home for hours, if at all. I wouldn’t have even known he was there, had he not laughed sinisterly, from somewhere in the darkness.

That day, one of my male flatmates, we’ll call him Science Guy, had been the last in our flat and group of friends to finish his exams to wrap up the year. The rest of us had finished days if not a week before, already celebrated and celebrated again as other friends got done. Most flatmates had already moved out and moved on to summer plans. He and I were the only flatmates home the night he decided to bring five random people back to our place for a booze-up, because nobody in our circle was keen or around for yet another mid-week night out on the town. I call these people he gathered random on purpose, for although they were known to him through his Science Degree classes, they weren’t people he (to my knowledge) had ever socialised with before, and I had certainly never laid eyes on them in my three years of knowing him. They were people keen to get on the booze some place, celebrate the end of exams with whoever was offering, and in my mind were (judgement alert) people who didn’t have any better offers. My flatmate just wanted a party, and I genuinely think he didn’t care who with.

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If you’re stuck, start.

~ AnnaB ~ Leave a comment

Here’s a lesson that has got me through so many days in the past few years. It has been my go-to whenever I’ve needed to tackle something difficult to do or those things that have me worried or nervous. If I’m dreading something, it’s the kick in the pants I need. It has got me to the finish-line on critical deadlines. It has propelled me into scary moments and helped me to break through my comfort zone. It’s nothing particularly fancy. In fact, it’s so simple it seems almost stupid to call it a lesson, but it is worth sharing. It’s not always easy to do, rarely easy actually, but it almost always works, and it definitely works for me.

When I’m stuck, I start.

I told you it was simple.

As I have grown up, although this is still a work in progress, I have learned more and more about myself. I have come to understand myself incrementally better (also still a work in progress) with each year, each life chapter. One of the things I came to notice and had to put under the microscope was my mastery of procrastination. Something tells me that this will resonate with you, darling niece (zero judgment here). It wasn’t really something that I particularly wanted to own, and it certainly wasn’t something I was keen to add to my resume, ha! But I had to admit, it was a part of me. Still is.

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It’s okay not to have all the answers.

~ AnnaB ~ Leave a comment

(But it’s good to have some questions)

Wow, you’re in your last year of high school.  How did that happen?  It’s like I blinked and you are all grown-up.  It feels like only yesterday I was standing outside your kindy room, ready to head off on an Aunty-Miss Lily adventure for the afternoon.  I can so clearly still see my arm outstretched ready to take your bag from you that you’d collected from the cubby-hole locker along with your latest masterpiece in water-based paints.  But more than a decade has gone by since then – time really does fly my lovely one.

So this year is a year I know you have been looking forward to for a while now.  I also know it is a year that contains a few ‘uh-oh’ items to contend with in the world of Miss Lily.  Okay, so one of those is the fact that your boyfriend leaves for university ahead of you, let’s just get that one out-of-the-way, because I do sympathise with you on this (you will be okay, by the way, I promise).  I’m really referring to the fact that while you go through your final year of high school (Year 13, a senior-senior and mufti at last! And all the other good stuff you’ll do alongside your many lovely friends), the prospect of 2018 looms large.

The question ‘what next?’ seems to be a weekly if not daily routine with everyone you come into contact with.  It’s nice that people are interested and care about what comes next for you, but it is also a pretty hard question for you to answer at the moment with any real clarity and sureness, and I totally get it!

I entered my final year of high school at 16, and it was term two before I was 17.  I look back and it seems crazy to me now that at that tender age I had to get a whole lot figured out for my future and fast.  I, like you, didn’t have a lot to go on at that stage, so I started with what I did know: Continue reading →

You are enough.

~ AnnaB ~ Leave a comment

This is my very first lesson for you.

I wanted the first post to be the most critical, important, and urgent of all my lessons for you, Miss Lily.  The one that if you disregarded, forgot, or lost all of the other lessons combined, it would still be okay because you would know the most important thing of all:

You are enough.

Right this very second.  Without ever having to do another thing in your life, good or bad. You are enough.  You matter. You are absolutely, truly, unquestionably worthy.

You see, you were born enough my darling niece, and nothing and no one could ever possibly change that fact. Ever.  Ev-er!

I want you to know today, tomorrow, and for every single day ahead of you that you are already you – and you are already enough.

 

However, this isn’t a lesson in putting your feet up ‘cos you’re done. No, no, no, no, no. Continue reading →