It was my first Bonfire Night. Truth be told, I don’t really know what we were meant to be celebrating. Is it an anarchist holiday? Or the complete opposite? I know about Guy Fawkes and I have some vague awareness of the gunpowder plot—largely thanks to V for Vendetta. That makes it feel rather triumphant to me.
My husband and I went down to the Bangor Pier to watch the fireworks and, despite arriving a little late and some rain, we had a great time. I love a fall evening. Give me fireworks, the seaside, and a pint, and I’m happy as could be.
As we strolled along, a loud group of university students came walking toward us. They were high-spirited, singing some tune I didn’t know. They weren’t raucous. They were enjoying the evening, same as us. They just happened to be taking up three quarters of the walkway.
I almost always naturally step aside to create room for other people. The sure sign of a conscientious person, certainly. But also of someone who has spent their life trying to shapeshift to accommodate others.
Tonight, I did something different to what I would normally do: I slowed down, and didn’t move aside. I wasn’t in their way. I was well on my side of the walkway. I didn’t try to assert myself in any sort of aggressive way. I simply let myself slow down and be present in my body where I was standing.
Honestly, there was part of me that was ready for them to be oblivious and issue a sharp-tongued “Watch where you’re going” if they happened to run into me. But they did as most people would, and when I didn’t alter my path they flowed around me like water making way for a rock.
Maybe this sounds trivial to you. And honestly, it was a really small moment. But I have spent so much of my life trying to appeal to others to get by in life, trying to bend and fold and flow and duck.
It goes back all the way to childhood.
Remember all those bullshit lessons as a kid when you had teachers tell you, “You have to learn to work in a group because you’ll be working with others for the rest of your life”?
Fair enough. But for many of us, it’s a lesson in how to become a chameleon. How to fade into the background and dim our light.
What they don’t tell you is that sometimes you need to recognize when you’re in a space where you aren’t valued, where you can’t be your authentic self.
For those of us with an excess of sensitivity and an abundance of empathy, no one circles back to tell us, “Hey, you know that you get to take up space, too, right?”
Sometimes you need to stand and embrace being present in your own body and let the world flow around you like water—even in moments when it just happens to be a group of uni students.