Confessions

1. I’m privileged, self-entitled, spoilt, vain, self-obsessed, and dissatisfied. 
2. I’m never happy, or feel good enough.

 I’m under constant pressure: to do what is expected of me, the first daughter of a typical Irish family: with a professional father, a stay-at-home mother, 2 children, daughter and son. I’m one of the lucky ones, yet I am under the impression that the world is against me. I’m 19, but the people I care most about impressing are my parents. It should be strange how much of an influence they have on my life, but it isn’t. For me, it’s the norm; how my friends and peers and classmates all are.
 This bubble I’m still living in is claustrophobic, but I’m too afraid to do anything to escape it, for fear of being judged, or ridiculed by the girls that were in my Leaving Cert English class, or by the guy friends I never made from becoming shy in my all-girl secondary school, or worse again imparting shame on the family. Letting the family name down is the worst thing that I could do, a lesson drilled into me from a very young age. It would reflect badly on my family if I had bad manners, if I didn’t do well in school, if I misbehaved in public or in front of extended family. It was considered distasteful if I spoke too much or too loudly, if I wore something unflattering on my overweight figure; and I would know it if my mom (never ‘Mam’) didn’t approve of something I did. That look is used more often now than ever before, even though I’m 20 in 6 weeks’ time and almost finished my second year of university. 
Being ‘perfect’ is something I remember thinking consciously I had to be from the age of 6, and still is something that is never far from my mind when I think about my life. That seems so wrong to me, but it’s the truth. 
I have been given every single opportunity in life. That began with reading being encouraged as far back as I can remember, Montessori at 4, when I started ballet too. I began primary school at 5, started Beavers (the youngest members of a Scout group) at 6. When I was 7 there was the brief foray into French lessons, my first time as a smurf in the local pantomime, and I started swimming lessons. By 9 I had been in my second (and final) pantomime, performed in numerous ballet shows and started doing my Grades in ballet, started hockey and playing the flute. I thrived in primary school, I felt like I was the Queen B: the work was simple, I loved my life, I read books constantly which was my escape. I went on walks and shopping trips with my mom, I was my dad’s “Princess”, my brother and I fought constantly. Teachers loved me, as did many adults I came into contact with, everything came easy to me, and I had buckets of confidence. I was my own centre of the universe. I was constantly told how smart I was, how gifted I was, how blessed and intelligent and lucky I was, and I believed every bit of it; why wouldn’t I have? I was skinny, I was cooler than my brother, I got what I wanted and had no pressure whatsoever. In 5^th class I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, performed by my ballet school. Despite my age I was in the oldest and highest-up class in that school. My brother is very intelligent, and teachers advised my parents to get him tested by the Irish Talented Youth and Mensa. My parents were always fair, so I had to do the tests as well, so B wouldn’t be daunted in the testing centres by himself. I got into Mensa my first and only time sitting the “test”, while B had to repeat it one year later before he became a member. I guess the superiority complex I had, and to some extent is still engrained in me should be no surprise. However, my brother was, is, and always will be the real brains in the family- my parents knew it, I knew it. I should have become the extra-curricular, sociable, pretty butterfly then; as per that unspoken agreement of my part of the world. 
Instead.... well I'm writing this post amn't I?