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Of Present Perceptions December 11, 2007

Posted by Jen in : Journal, Novel , 19comments

Just like Mr Benn, I decided to try on a new life when I was 14. I was starting a new school and planned the re-vamped me all summer: come September, I would be trendier, cooler, less square and, after a bit of dieting, less round too. Instead of being a flute-tooting bookworm, I would be like the other girls who had boys chasing them. I would snog in public and everything.

Yeah, right.

Just over four years ago, I left Jersey. I left behind all my friends, family and the claustrophobia of growing up on a small rock. I can re-invent myself, I thought. I would be trendier, cooler… ahem.

You know what? I’m now 38 and still the bloomin same. And I’m beginning to think that might be alright. Ok, so I’m not a jazz pianist or a psychotherapist and I only have two kids instead of a set of triplets or a hippo who lives in the bath.

But it’s just occurred to me that this is what my novel’s about: being grown up enough to be yourself.

I still want to be a writer. I still want to run away to France and speak French to real French people. And even though that’s not really what ordinary people like me do, I’m going to do it anyway. And even when I do all that, I’ll still be me. Just as well really; it seems that I’m only just getting the hang of it. There again, I would quite like to become a gladiator. Or a spaceman. Maybe I’ll go on a bit of a diet again tomorrow.

Oh dear.