Even the Pigeons

There are a few immutable truths about myself, keystones of my identity.

I need my time alone. The smell of nicotine makes me sick. Birds terrify me. Loud and incessant noise cause my soul to shrivel. If given an out from a social situation, I will take it. Every time. Even if not given an out, I will find a way to bail if I can.

Ask anyone who knows me, even just a little, to describe me at all, and I would put good money down that one of those attributes I listed above will come up.

But here’s the thing – since I’ve gotten to London, those things, those things that I and the rest of the world knew to be true about me? They’re not so true after all.

I’m making friends here. More than that, I’m initiating them, asking people out for coffee and lunch and drinks. I’m the one who’ll make small talk on the elevator. Apparently, the UK hasn’t been subjected to the cigarette PSAs that all the US children were, or maybe they just didn’t care, because it seems like nearly everybody here smokes. I thought I was going to be in a perpetual state of gagging, but so far, unless I’m trailing someone who is particularly chimney-like, I barely even notice. There are pigeons EVERYWHERE, and where before I’d have had my chest clench anytime I had to walk past one, I’ve yet to feel a kick of adrenaline in my daily sojourns. My apartment window is a portal for sirens and parties and protests and buskers and drunk students who think it’s hilarious to sing at two in the morning. I can’t remember the last time I had a moment of true silence, and yet my brain hasn’t turned to mush. I’ve gone out, and even though I was late, even though I took the wrong train, even though I had to wait to sneak in the door because there was no one there to buzz me in, I stuck it out. I found a way, not an out.

I’ve surprised myself. The me I am in London behaves so differently than the mes I have been had behaved anywhere else. And at first, I thought it was London, that maybe there was some Terrigan-like mist in the air, but instead of giving me superpowers it made me a more functional human being. I’m sure part of it is just maturity. I am now, by most metrics, a fully-fledged adult. Still, I don’t think it’s my new location or my age. I think the me I am now is the me I’ve always been, deep down.

Before I left, my mom told me that she felt like I had been repressing some part of myself and that when I got to London it was going to be freed. That I was going to step into the part of myself that I’d kept hidden, even from myself. I remember thinking I’d done a pretty good job of hiding because I wasn’t entirely sure what part of myself she was talking about. I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of who I was. I still feel like I am who I thought I was. It’s just now I feel like I am that self more fully, with fewer inhibitions and equivocations.

When I was little, really little, I used to sing and perform in front of strangers. You couldn’t take the microphone from me. Somehow, something changed, because, by the age of four, I was huddling on the floor in the corner of my kindergarten classroom, existentially exhausted from having to be around my classmates all day. I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling wrong, like a puzzle piece that got put into the wrong box.

I’ve lost that feeling. Not completely. It’s hard to break a twenty-year long habit. I’m still subject to moments of self-doubt. But the confidence in myself, the confidence that led two-year-old me to grab an umbrella in the aisle of TJ Maxx and re-enact “Singin’ in the Rain” for a crowd of strangers, I found that again. It’s softer, quieter, atrophied from decades of disuse, but it’s been there all along.

I’m not a blade of grass who has to live in perpetual fear of being trampled by muddy boots. I’m a sunflower, growing tall and strong, reaching for the light. Sunshine makes everything seem more friendly and less frightening. Even the pigeons.

Images: Pixabay

#personal #lark #journey