Walking cliche

When people are asked to do job interviews or write a letter selling themselves to a university, they're supposed to market themselves and make themselves stand out. They say talking about something has a significant, long-lasting impact on you. But to me, that would lead to me being a walking cliche. I was raised in an urban zootopia, a slice of the country and the city, the best of both worlds. On paper, I was your stereotypical girl who had it Perfect. I never had to worry about money, lived near academic schools, was part of a nuclear family, and my mum and dad were happily married for thirty years. They had a brother—what makes me stand out and be different from every white middle-class girl in the country.

I grew up never fitting in; I was born into a privileged lifestyle. However, I never fit in with everyone else even though we should fit all the stats and facts; we went to the same school, club, and town. What made me so different was a deep part of me that was never open for public consumption or criticism. I am an onion. I have many annoying layers to break down, and Peele, you will cut and push and break me down, and I will cry and scream for help. If you put me in the fire, I will burn and obey you, fall under pleasure and give up. I will give up. 

Why is it that girls never seem in the slightest reassured in themselves? Is it like me, where the dad was the breadwinner in the family, or women have been subjected to so much abuse over the years and objectification by men that we don't feel confident in our skin? Hence, you have to build an extra barrier to prevent being penetrated. Staggering statistics show the new generation is being bullied and brought down onto their knees at a higher rate. These are the facts.

• Around one in five children aged 10 to 15 years in England and Wales (19%) experienced at least one type of online bullying behaviour in the year ending March 2020, equivalent to 764,000 children.
• More than half (52%) of those children who experienced online bullying behaviours1 said they would not describe these behaviours as bullying, and one in four (26%) did not report their experiences to anyone.
• Being called names, sworn at or insulted and having nasty messages about them sent to them were the two most common online bullying behaviour types experienced by 10% of all children aged 10 to 15 years.
• Nearly three out of four children (72%) who had experienced online bullying behaviour experienced at least some of it at school or during school time.

These statistics prove I would never fit in as I was 1 in 5, not the other four. I am a walking cliche because from the outside looking in. I shouldn’t be sad. I have had incredible opportunities in life. My problem is that nothing remarkable happened to me that made me significant; nothing in my profile would make me stand out. I am studying Law at University. I am allergic to relationships. I had no light bulb moment; I didn’t experience a humanitarian crisis or have some magical story to whisk people away,  to make me dazzle and shine. I am an old, disfigured penny that has been through the machines, copied, and posted for years; I am no different to the next girl. I didn’t do a heroic thing and get on TV for it, flee a warzone, or stand up for women’s rights to education against a Terrorist group; heck, I have never been to a protest.

I have always said where I stood but never stood where it needed to be said. I am the modern-day Rapunzel. Thanks to the pandemic, I have been locked in my house for one and a half years. I Never had my view, just those of excellent rents; I could never do something or wear something without being scrutinised under a magnifying glass. I gave my parents an antique china doll to put on a show and invariably put it away. I never saw it. However, the other side lived, and the cultural division and social injustices riffed our world. I was the girl who was told at school that girls did dance, gymnastics and netball for PE  and couldn’t do Rugby or football. This was during the years when America had their first black president, and we had, for a second time, a female prime minister. 

I am a walking cliche as I fit the prisoner of a privileged girl who got what she wanted and when she wanted it. So when the time comes when I am sitting in a job interview, and I'm trying to sell myself, I wouldn't have a story of heroism and significant growth. I was the girl who loved Barbies, whose favourite colour was pink, who would make up imaginary stories about where she truly belonged as she had her hands on the steering wheel in her own life. I will have a story of a girl who, on paper, had everything she needed but needed to fit in on paper. How do you sell her? 

I felt like an outsider looking in at my life and so badly wanting it without the flaws and hardships that come with it. I want to be a pioneer for the next generation, to explore this work and find myself outside this fishbowl of a life.

I am a walking cliche with no fancy back story, no diamonds and glitter, just a woman trying to find herself in a world that distinctively doesn’t want that treasure to be found, an unspoken expectation.