Why I love feeling like an outsider
because who wants to be normal anyway?
Guys…. Breaking News…
I have just started CrossFit (I know, I can’t believe I'm a Cross-Fit-Wanker either)
My first class was last week, I absolutely loved it. I was super excited and not sure what to expect.
As I walked into the class instructor noticed me, and with a furrowed brow- as she didn’t recognise me - said:
‘Hello everyone please welcome Jackie’’
I smiled.
‘’Hey everyoneeeee!!’’
They all proceeded to stare at me then looked back at the board.
My first thought was ‘’ruuuuuude!!’’ but in a really f*cked up way, I absolutely loved it.
It was very humbling, because Nobody Cares Bitch! Work Harder!
They’re here to work out, get that sweat on and…go home.
Delightful because the world I exist in, is a world where I am my work,
I am content!
The voice!
The ‘’talent’’
Me Me Me Me…
So it is so refreshing to exist in a separate world where it's not about you, and its like:
‘’Oh? You’re new here’’ Cute! Get to work!
But it was also lovely to be an outsider.
I am not new in my world but new in theirs, but in my mind I’ve always been an ‘’outsider’’.
It’s a feeling I am all too familiar with. I moved schools six times growing up, not because I was one of those difficult children, but because my parents were always seeking progression, and good on them! In particular, my grandparents were part of the “Aureol Generation”, the influx of Nigerians coming to the UK to study at university and better their lives.
My mum was born out of the Aureol generation in London She didn’t want to live in the UK and just be renting all her life, she wanted to own something, to keep building. My father, a first-time immigrant in the UK after marrying my mum did the right thing and simply followed ‘’the missus’’. So we moved from a council flat in St Johns Wood (very bouji, I know I know), to Wembley, then to Childs Hill, Golders Green, until they eventually bought a house in Colindale, North West London. We didn't stop there though.
We moved to a chalet bungalow in north of Luton (yes the home of Stacey Dooley and… unfortunately Andrew Tate…)and then moved again to an area called Bushmead in Luton.
‘’You won’t be going back’’
I remember being excited to return to see my friends after the school holiday and my mum bringing in a new school uniform and saying ‘’You won’t be going back’’. I would cry into my teddies for a few hours, thinking about how I was excited to see my friends ’Jessica and Rochelle and then furiously wipe my tears, stare out the window like Ashanti in the “Foolish” video and mutter to myself ‘’here we go again’’...
By the time I hit Year 7, we stopped moving home so I was settled for 5 years for the first time in my life. When new people would join my classes, I gravitated towards them as I knew what it felt like to be ‘’an outsider’. I knew what it felt like when nobody wanted to hang with you and you had to wait about 2 months before people realised you were actually cool?? (shocking tbh)
I still felt like an outsider, and In some ways I still do, not in a “womp womp be sad for me” way, but just in a “I find my own random unconventional ways of making my life enjoyable and exciting and that might not make sense to other people’’ and you know what I fucking love being an outsider. It’s the only way I know how to be, and why try and be anything else when you can be yourself?
The thought of feeling like an outsider can sometimes feel incredibly shitty, especially starting something you have never done before, a new job you have or even just re-introducing yourself to a new world where nobody knows of you. It’s all TERRIFYING - but equally terribly exciting.
The thing about being an outsider is, you study and watch everyone, you have to, you learn so much about people, you learn - it's never personal if people don’t instantly fall head over heels for you.
I’ve always believed that you can only meet people where they have met themselves, and when you’re an outsider you have probably met yourself many times, because you have been faced with people who don’t understand you or don't know where to place you - a unique experience.
But whether people understand you or not, don’t stop showing up as you, because *that* outsider feeling really is our superpower.
I went to CrossFit (4th class) today, showed up as me again, enand joyed myself, now guess who ended up being ‘accidentally’ the class clown?
Now, how's that for a handful?
Jackie x
More Than Handful Recommendations:
Where I recommend celebrities, artists, creatives to inspire you who keep showing the world that they’re a handful and expressing themselves and living life on nobody’s terms but their own <3
To listen - Damon Albarn on Broken Record Podcast- awks cos he's my husbands friend but i highkey will always love him as an artist. The Blur frontman gets candid, he talked about writing his own opera, the role of Gorillaz in an AI world, but also cracked up at the fact his daughter called him a ‘’boomer’’and he has no idea what it is.
To read: Emma Gannon’s substack on ‘’how giving up drinking supercharged her creativity’’. I am no longer drinking midweek and it was a breath of fresh air to read.
To watch: If you haven’t seen At Home with the Fury’s on Netflix where you been?? Think the Kardashians but on steroids but also make it Northern. A reality show featuring World champion Tyson Fury’s crazy family. His wife Paris for me is the star. It’s 9 episodes and you can binge it in one go!
Can’t stop thinking about:
THEE Robbie Williams has a 4 part documentary coming out on Netflix soon, can’t cope, 7 y/o me is screaminggggggggg. Honestly in another life, I was a middle-aged mum with a Robbie tattoo on her back xoxo