Tuesday 15 March 2011

sparkly

Someone said that at work, today. Not about me, but about someone else. "She has amazing joie de vivre; she's so sparkly".

I wish I was sparkly. I wish I sparkled in conversations, instead of being racked with self doubt. I leave a room, and I worry what people think of me. I worry all the time. I worry when J goes away (he's going away a lot for work coming up - across the Atlantic, no less). I worry when he gets on the tube. I worry so much, all the time, that I barely even notice it any more.

I worry about my family - they are so far away. When my dad or brother call me, I instantly assume something is wrong with my mum, who is epileptic. When anyone calls at an unusual time, I worry that something is wrong and before I answer, my stomach does a little flip.

This hasn't been helped lately by the fact that something was wrong - my tiny nephew was in intensive care for a while. He's home now, but it was agony. Weirdly, I didn't outwardly worry about this. I kept ploughing through and pretending everything was fine - I couldn't visit - and then a week ago I had a little breakdown when I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for a long time, really uncontrollably. I don't cry much. Not at TV or films, generally. Not like J, who cries at anything. He can barely watch One Born Every Minute.

It's such a shame. I tell myself all the time that if anything were to happen, all that I would feel is regret for living under such a cloud of worry. All I can do is keep telling myself that. If others worry, I hear wise words coming out of my mouth. How do the sparkly people do it?

5 comments:

  1. I'd say I'm quite a confident person. But I am definitely a worrier, too. In fact, the more worried I am, the more "sparkly" I am with people who don't know me. I guess everyone just has different ways of coping :)

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  2. I don't think that being a worrier precludes sparkle. Albeit only virtually, you seem feisty, funny and vivacious to me - sounds pretty sparkly, no?

    Px

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  3. I am a worrier too and have many of the same worries you do. It is a relief I thought I was the only one!

    I would say through your writing you seem full of sparkle! And I bet lots of others think so too.

    xxx

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  4. I think some people would call me sparkly. Well I'd like to think so anyway ;) But I am also a huge worrier. So, just saying maybe you sparkle more than you realise? x

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  5. I think I veer wildly between being sparkly and being a total worrier. I think I can actually do both at once sometimes... you're probably far more sparkly to other people than you think!

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