Ordinary Jane

I can’t remember who said this to me, or where I read it..but I for a very long time believed I was. I believed I was different from every other girl in school who wore their socks well below their ankle and I wore mine high up to my knee, I was different from all those skinny one’s in little skirts, my skirt hung below my knee and I weighed 60 kilos on my 13^th b’day. I think we all like to think we are different in our own way, that we stand apart from the crowd, the crowd defined as anybody who would ideally follow a norm, fashion, ethics even. I again for a very long time believed I had that something that, in my absence people would remember me and say “hey, remember..she used to say this” but the truth is we are all, most of us, very ordinary. I did nothing different than what was expected of me, which of course nobody expected anything very different from me to start with. My reactions to most things is regular, my body with all its imperfections, is ordinary. My mind..very average. My heart breaks just as easily as the next person, I am not the most sensitive person in this world as I thought. Online quizzes put me in the typical 75% category. I change my answers to fit into the 25%, knowing its cheating I go back to my first answers and yes, I am like everyone else.

And I am not always going to be the love of anyone’s life. Nor am I going to be the one that made them feel things they never felt before. I am not the most beautiful partner they have had, nor the most glamorous or tasteful, or funny or special. I’m not the first or last to touch them in a certain way. And I am not the only one who has made them feel love. I’m not. I’m just me and that is the only thing that makes me different from the rest they’ve had. Just my name. My identity, which may be my own, but is also like a million others. When they leave, I will be just another statistic, a name. Nothing more.

No, there is nothing different or special or unique about me. And sometimes there is solace in that. There are fewer expectations. No mountains to climb or valleys to cross to prove my worth or love. Never mind that I may be willing or even able to do that. I try to tell myself that it’s better this way. I have nothing to prove or live up to.