Belonging, by Beccy Lloyd

I thought I’d kick this blog off by sharing what I’ve been thinking lately about some of life’s big questions.

Who am I? and where do I belong?

Not least because, for the first time in many years, I find myself with the space to make decisions about my life, putting what I want first and that’s exciting, but I haven’t thought about it in a long time! What do I want? Last time I asked myself I was probably a teenager, and you’ll hear how well that went in a minute. Now I’m a middle-aged woman, a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend. I’m proud of myself, and who I’ve become… and I’m loving being behind a microphone, with something to say.

As a writer, and in voiceover, it’s vitally important to know who you are. To be yourself. Whether you’re in character or not, bringing your own authentic voice is the difference between doing a passable job, and creating something people can really believe in. That’s as true for a short advert as it is for an epic novel.

But it's not always easy to know who you are.

When I was three years old, my mum dressed up as a teddy bear, took to the stage and fell off Santa’s sleigh. Lost and confused, the teddy bear asked the audience for their help… “I don’t know where I belong” she cried. Presumably baffled as to why she would be confused at all, three-year-old me stood up and replied in earnest “You belong to me!”

Whatever else I understood about life at that time, I knew I was part of a family and I belonged wherever they were, just as they belonged with me. I was confident, self-assured and I knew I was loved.

There was a strong sense of village community where I grew up in Uffculme, Devon, and my mum drew us into the heart of village life.

We weren’t ‘locals’, as people say in villages, having not lived there for generations, but I’m not sure it mattered. As a child, there was no doubt I belonged there. Our tiny school was a close-knit community and almost everything in my life happened in and around the village. It was truly lovely. There were no big questions to be asked and I continued to be confident and self-assured. I played sports, I sang, danced, and always got the narrators part with lots of lines to say. I was never afraid to put my hand up in class and say what I thought.

When my horizons broadened a little, at ‘big’ school, I wasn’t sure where I fitted in. There were suddenly so many more people to think about. Things I’d taken for granted seemed to have new implications. If felt like there was a subtext to everything and I didn’t understand. What did they have that I didn’t? What was it like to be any one of them? What made people popular, or unpopular, attractive, or not? My self-consciousness exploded and I cared far, far, too much for my own good. I really wanted to be liked.

In wild pursuit of universal fame and popularity (yeah, I know, it’s embarrassing), I racked up quite a catalogue of social disasters. I was loud and outspoken, I showed off at any opportunity, flitted between social groups mercilessly ditching a friend here or there if someone else looked a bit cooler in that moment, and did a great job of hiding most of my better characteristics behind a messy, over-sized façade in case, what I was, underneath it all, wasn’t enough. I’d forgotten, not only to ask, ‘what did I have that they didn’t?’ but also, that life is not a competition. Inside, I was dying of shame, knowing I was getting it all wrong and having no idea how or who to ask for help.

I even moved schools at 14, purportedly because I couldn’t do the options I wanted where I was, but I also knew there’d be a whole new school full of people to get to know where I might do a better job of it. I didn’t. The grass is rarely greener.

In my desperation to fit in, I was mostly just downright awful. The last thing I was being was true to myself.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t have any friends from my school days.

Now I understand that I had no idea who I was. My sense of self felt entirely wrapped up in how I believed myself to be perceived by others. And I guess I didn’t like myself all that much so I assumed no one else could either. Ironically, I made myself incredibly visible for someone who wanted the earth to swallow them up.

Of course, I wasn’t alone in finding those teenage years difficult, but it didn’t seem to stop.

I think I grew out of those feelings only relatively recently. Even now I have the odd relapse and particularly find that small talk makes me so uncomfortable that I tend to over-share in a slightly mad attempt to find the things we have in common until I get embarrassed and have to never speak to that person again.

Ultimately though, I care far less in my forties than ever before what people think of me and I’m finally happy again with my sense of self. It’s taken some coming to terms with, but it’s OK if not everyone likes me!

Having spent years bouncing painfully off the walls as I threw myself at all sorts of situations to try to make myself fit, even where I felt distinctly uncomfortable, I find I’m happiest living quite a private, quiet life with the occasional open mic night or dinner party to satisfy that bit of me that craves the limelight. I even like the sound of my own voice again, enough to put it out there in the world, professionally!

Where I belong is with the people who are important to me. My family, and a small group of wonderful friends who I’ve known for a long time. We’ve created meaningful stories together, we matter to each other, and that’s worth sharing.

In terms of physical belonging, I’ve moved around quite a bit too. Trying to find that elusive ‘place where I belong’.

I’ve lived only very briefly in London. I was pregnant, and sleeping on a friend’s sofa bed, so that was far from ideal.

I loved living in Plymouth, and I loved Bristol. Both were right when they were right, and I felt about both cities that they became my home. But ultimately, I wanted countryside.

My husband, daughter and I built a home together in Cheddar, Somerset, where we’ve been for the last ten years, and I’ve loved it there too but there’s a part of me that’s always wondering what’s next, and it was time for me to move on. Old habits and all that.

So, we’ve moved, albeit temporarily, to a tiny community in West Cornwall. I’m excited by the rough and rugged landscape of the Penwith peninsula, where we spent many summer holidays as kids. I love the sea being all around. I love the feeling of being on the westernmost end of our island. And at a time of year when there really aren’t many other people here, it feels like the quiet intimacy you share with an old friend. No need to explain yourself, the hills aren’t going to ask why you’re there, or how long you’re staying this time.

It turns out, after thirty-something years in pursuit of a different answer to “who am I” and “where do I belong”? I’m back somewhere that looks a lot like where I started. I just took the long way round. Forty-five-year-old me has a lot in common with that little three-year-old. Confident, self-assured, loved and full of love, and calling family ‘home’. I am more curious about place than I was then, and I don’t feel a strong sense of attachment to a physical place to call home but the places I want to explore are mostly rural, coastal, wild and green, and resemble the places I knew as a child in some way.

Meanwhile, from humble beginnings as that teddy bear, who belonged to me, my mum has embarked on a long career of dressing as a whole zoo of costumed animals, and I include a photo, of her as a Kung Fu Panda, demonstrating quite beautifully, when I remembered to look, that it really doesn’t matter what people think of you, as long as you’re happy.

Whatever it is you want to do, just do it.

You might even get a round of applause.

Thanks, mum.

Me, loving life… now, and age 3…