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Feb 04 - The Better You Feel

By Stefano Blanca Sciacaluga

I'm the kind of person who will suddenly feel their stomach clench up at an unknown number call appearing on their screen. But I’m also the kind of person who after one too many sweaty-palmed and dry-mouthed encounters decided things had to change.

I have a vague idea as to why I’m this way, but I’m not going to go into details, I will only say that I have been like this for as long as I can remember. I was recently watching an interview with an illustrator-comedian where they asked what he was like as a child, and he answered something along the lines of “quiet, with a big imagination and a one friend kind of child”. I guess finding this guy was a birds of a feather kind of thing. Thinking back to my own childhood I was just like that.  But before I knew it I was not only shy I was also being rude, just to get away with not doing things; and beyond being rude I was just missing out on a lot.

It really wasn’t until I got to university and was thrown into the deep end. I mean, for a few years before going to university I was performing all over Gibraltar and if I was known for anything it would be for singing and playing guitar in a band that, if I may say so myself, was rather popular locally, within the small live music scene (probably because we were four sixteen year olds, more than anything). But that was a freak occurrence, that was a strange phenomenon that I still don't understand. And before I knew it there I was, on my own in England and somehow, after swallowing some water I had managed to make it to the shallow end and manage just fine. It wasn’t so bad, but I still had to get out.

It took time. It took me some years to realise that there was no need to depend on other people so much but most importantly there was no need to be afraid of being your own one friend. Immediately after that realisation I found myself in a foreign country, in what was like being thrown in a second deep end, but cycling around, going shopping and taking train rides on my own. It was around this time that I realised I’m a bit of a control freak, and doing things on my own, with only my own actions to control meant that I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. If you mess up, you mess up. I also learnt one of the most valuable lessons (which I have been refining ever since): the art of learning to say no. Because after spending a lot of quality alone time, just me and my tiny, foldable, purple bicycle, I really wanted to spend more time on the things I liked, rather than being in a dark room, listening to music I don’t care for, with sweaty people I didn’t know, let alone care for.

But I was still feeling guilty that I was letting people down, that people would think there were other reasons why I didn’t want to do things, other than just not wanting to do them; and beyond the feeling of guilt was also the feeling of “really I’m just wasting my time and avoiding things”. Which I was, in a way. I had gone from being out in the public, dealing with others, to getting stuck in the routine of doing things alone as an escape from dealing with people. And here’s where the second realisation came: It’s fine to be your own one friend but be others’ friend too. I was twenty three, no longer a student and faced with more real-life situations than getting out of bed and sitting in a class for an hour at a time. By then I was OK with going to a museum on my own, or to a concert, or for a coffee, but I was terrified of walking up to a help-desk, or even calling somebody I didn’t know on the phone (I still kind of am, I have to psyche myself up). It really wasn't until a few of years ago that I realised if I wanted to be a fully functional adult I would have to take the bull by the horns and somehow overcome this thing I had lived with for more than twenty years.

I was recently talking to a colleague, who just couldn’t believe it when I told her I’m quite a shy person (and was even more so) and I realised that my coping mechanism was to be a bit of a clown (and learn to laugh at myself), to subconsciously put myself in situations where I’d be bricking it (like being on television, or agreeing to host a one-off show) and to be a lot more honest, both with myself and others. And I think it’s worked. There are still times when I meet people and it’s a little awkward (I sometimes forget to say nice to meet you because I’m too nervous about messing up), or times I just don’t pick up the phone, if I don’t know who it is (I’m working on it, I’m also saving numbers, like DHL’s number, into my phonebook) or even times that I end up going to parties, events, clubs, dinners, and a whole lot of things that I just really, really, really don’t want to go to. But I see it as little challenges that I’m yet to overcome, and the idea of overcoming them is exciting. Because I know that someday, as cringey as remembering some experiences during my university years is, I will also be looking at today, thankful that I am no longer a weird beef-witted-boar-pig of a man.

For more, visit: www.stefanoblanca.com 



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