I’ve been noticing how small I’ve made myself. If you’d known me at school you’d be saying I’m loud, bubbly, larger than life, maybe even cheeky - definitely sarcastic.
But that’s not really me anymore, I don’t think it has been for a while.
I find myself making myself smaller when I share a bed,
I take just enough space while Simon sprawls and the dog snores between my cramped feet.
Saying sorry when trying to get past someone, even when there’s plenty of room.
In the pub we used to frequent, I’d often lose my seat to someone else and not ask for it back.
Walking in the Lake District, we didn’t go into the shops I wanted to go into. I walked behind, because it was easier.
I sit at my desk not doing much but someone at work (there’s only two other people!) might need me when I could be doing something that fulfils me.
None of these moments are dramatic. They’re polite. Ordinary. The sort of things you barely register at the time.
But they add up. And lately, I’ve been feeling the sum of them in my body.
I had a moment a few weeks back, while walking Fred. A small altercation — nothing major — but it landed hard. Someone who lives two streets away. Someone I will probably see again. For a split second, my brain did the thing it often does: Well, I can’t go that way anymore.
Two streets disappeared from my world in an instant.
It reminded me of a woman we met in the Lake District once. Fred was barking at her dogs. Her dogs were barking back. I apologised, instinctively, and she laughed gently and said, “Don’t apologise. You’ll spend all day saying sorry. It’s just what dogs do.”
A stranger, miles from home, gave me permission I didn’t know I was waiting for.
The contrast feels important. Out there, away from the familiar, away from the sense of being watched or remembered, my world felt expansive. Here, close to home, it shrinks so easily. One raised eyebrow, one comment, one uncomfortable interaction, and I start editing myself out of my own routines.
The same thing happens inside my home.
Neighbours in the garden commenting that I’m in my dining room.
“She’s stood there listening to us.”
No! I’m turning the TV on. I’m making sure my dog doesn’t bark at the sudden noise you’re making. I’m trying not to listen. But I can’t not hear you.
And suddenly, that room feels compromised. Like I shouldn’t be there. Like I need to retreat, even though it’s my house. My space. My life.
Each of these moments means nothing to the other person. They walk away unchanged.
But for me, they leave a residue. A tiny contraction. A new rule I didn’t agree to but somehow adopted.
I read something recently about fawning — one of those terms circulating in pop psychology spaces. A lot of it feels overblown, but uncomfortably, some of it fits. The reflex to smooth things over. To apologise pre-emptively. To shrink so no one else has to feel mildly inconvenienced.
The trouble is, it’s starting to feel physically restrictive. Like holding myself in. Like I’m going to burst. I keep coming back to the image of a seed underground. It swells quietly for a long time, doing exactly what it’s meant to do. Contained. Patient. But there comes a point where it has to crack. Not out of aggression but because growth requires space.
What I don’t want is the false choice that often gets presented next. That if you stop making yourself small, you must become sharp-edged. Loud. Selfish. A raging narcissist who takes up all the air in the room.
I’ve met those people, I’ve given them my precious time, love, energy. They squeezed me smaller. I do not want to be that.
But it’s also so similar to school-aged me. Where joy and play were a priority but this time they must come with mindfulness, empathy and nourishment for me and those around me.
There has to be a middle ground.
One where I don’t disappear but I also don’t dominate.
Where I take up space without apology, without explanation, without needing to justify my presence.
Where I walk the same route again tomorrow.
Where I sit in my dining room while the neighbours talk.
Where my dog barks, and so do theirs, and that’s just what dogs do.
This isn’t about confrontation. It’s about occupation.
Letting my roots spread sideways into the space that is already mine.
Being comfortable in my surroundings. My property. My life.
I can feel the pressure. It’s making my body hurt, sick.
It’s a signal.
I’ve grown as much as I can without cracking.
And it’s time.
It started with a haircut.
Booked last minute, in the middle of health appointments, after a week of rest,
I’m returning to work slowly. Doing what is necessary. For Chicken. For me.
Money is tighter than tight.
It has always been a big stressor for me, because in my past it was used to control me.
But now I’m the breadwinner and half a business, I’m relied on.
I can’t earn if I’m broken.
I shrank myself sick.
My blood is pounding around my inflamed body asking for more space.
I felt guilty booking a haircut when I should have been working. I went anyway.
Afterwards, it felt great.
I recognised myself again (even if it is a bit mullet-y!)
I put on makeup and styled my hair.
Wore the nicer clothes.
I had come back. I felt like myself again.
So I’m paying attention now to the small acts that restore me. Not as indulgence. Not as defiance. As occupation.
Taking up the space that is already mine.
Letting my roots spread sideways.
Walking the same route again tomorrow.
Sitting in my own dining room.
Letting the dog bark.
I’ve been dormant long enough.
The conditions are right.
It’s time to stop holding myself in.
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