I’ve come to the conclusion that the way we see ourselves is very often at variance at how other people see us.
At the heart of this are a bunch of unrelated remarks and comments that people have made to me about things I do that suggest to me I could do with a bit more self belief because how I see things I do and achieve is generally somewhat more negative than how other people see it.
Apparently I’m always off doing something. I wouldn’t ever say I’m great at it – my main talent appears to be photography – but I’m game to try stuff I want to try for the most part.
I have never really realised how this differs to some of the people around me until they say things. Like, they wouldn’t plan holidays around certain activities. Holidays are for doing nothing. Holidays for me are opportunities to do things I don’t necessarily get to do here. Photographs of the south of France. You can’t do that in Dublin. Kitesurfing in Brazil. Ditto. Seriously, compare Jericoacoara to Dollymount and call a choice.
One of the things that stuns me is that I do stuff on my own. Call it necessity or whatever, but when it boils down to something I want to do, and the choice is do it on my own or not do it at all, I’ll always just feck off and do it.
Some people have found this difficult to believe because they can’t do it. I’ve friends who can’t/won’t go to the cinema on their own. Concerts. Sports. I’ll freely admit that I won’t go kitesurfing on my own and anyway, I can’t go climbing on my own. But travelling, checking stuff out, trying things…I can somewhere summon up the courage to go and walk among strangers and give it a shot.
Part of this is because by and large, strangers have always been very good to me. Mostly, I don’t worry about things. I lost my purse in the airport in Charles de Gaulle once. I got it back completely intact. When I am travelling alone, I always find people to talk to. When I decide I am going to try something, there are usually other people there. Wherever I land, there is always someone that I fit in with. If I look back over the years, there have been people who’ve stopped to check I’m okay if my car is at the side of the road (taking a phone call). Other people who are travelling who have suggestions and ideas for things I may not have known to try. Other people who have things in common with me. I can remember sitting in a café in Locronan in Brittany counting rolls of film (yes, once upon a time…) and a Swiss man coming up to me to tell me he had a Canon A1 and what was I shooting and he was travelling with his wife. They had sold up everything when he retired and were travelling around Europe in a campervan.
One of my friends who went travelling, but not alone, said she noticed the the people who travelled alone always got on fine. To some extent, they often did better than she did because they were alone and therefore more likely to get talking to strangers and find out about things whereas she and her friend were more introverted because they had each other for company.
It’s an interesting observation, all the more so because it matches my experience. When I don’t travel alone, I don’t tend to get talking to so many people. It’s almost introverted. I’m not sure whether that is cultural or not as it typically happens more when I am travelling with mainly Irish people and less when I am travelling with mainly French people.
That all being said, every once in a while I settle down and think I must be very boring altogether. I don’t go out much at night – I find it boring and also, very tiring. I prefer doing stuff by daylight. One of the things I love about life now is that I can do it that way.
Anyway, because I don’t have an overly high opinion of how I fit into the world, it’s really sweet when people come up and tell me that they think something I’ve done or achieved or said is extraordinary or changes their lives in some way. It matters to me a lot. Because I very often don’t see it as very special. It’s good to know I might occasionally be wrong about this.
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