Lonely Caterpillar
 

‘I’m not that girl’

I have spent the past week on a family holiday in England with my Hubby and two kids. As the title suggests one of the many things we did during that time was go to see the musical Wicked. At the risk of a little bit of a spoiler, one of the songs is ‘I’m not that girl’ and basically its one of the lead characters singing about a man she’s fallen for who has fallen for someone else. Its the general unrequited love story (although if you have seen wicked you will know its not quite that simple).

I have been to see Wicked three times in the past year having developed a love of musical theatre but also being a creature of habit, I know what I like and I stick with it. The past two times this song never stood out to me but this time, a week on, I still cant get thing song out of my head.  I am long past chasing after boys but I well remember as a teenager being ‘friend zoned’ plenty of times. Countless times I wished I was ‘that girl’, the pretty one, the blonde one, the clever one, sporty one, rich one, even the normal one was a thought I had a lot. I think this is a fairly normal teenage thing to do while we are finding out feet and not quite sure who we are or who we want to be.

I think for many of us me included it can take a really long time for that need to me ‘that girl’ to go away. the need to compare ourselves is sometimes over whelming. In our careers we want to be the woman at the top. If only we could work harder, find it easier, earn a little more, drive a nicer car, be the woman who has it all, I want what THAT GIRL has. How easy is it to forget what we actually have for ourselves? How blessed we are? and how we are the only ones who can fill our own role. What that girl has wouldn’t fit me so well, it wouldn’t make me happy in the same way.

I found myself just yesterday realising that I am not ‘That Mum’ – as I stood in a shopping que and the attendant chatted away to the children in the row beside me, telling the mother how awesome her kids where and how well behaved and lovely. My two meanwhile, who are far to big to be in a trolley but had squeezed themselves in and where giggling very loudly, being generally silly 5 & 7 year olds with an extra bit of Aspie hyperness added in for good measure and gaining glares from all around. I realised I wasn’t ‘that mum’ and honestly hand on heart I didn’t care. Iv said before how days out can be tricky, we aren’t a totally conventional family but then i’v never been part of one of those and I’m not even sure I know many if any.

The thing is and SPOILER ALERT – in Wicked, when the girl (Elphaba) who sings the song, stops focusing on other people, who she thinks she should be, she gets the guy.

In the end he didn’t want ‘that girl’ he wanted this one. Once we let go of who we think we should be, who others want us to be, and stop looking at what everyone else has and look at the blessings in our own hands and use them, we find we aren’t ‘that girl’, but actually THIS girl, is pretty awesome and its who I was always supposed to be.