the person i want to be

I’m not talking about world domination; the murky figure of my future-self is still too far off to properly recognise.

I’m talking about the rascally person I want to be now. The elusive creature I occasionally catch a glimpse of performing the chores that I’m studiously putting off.

There! I see her again: exercising in the rain, the wind, the darkness, while I’m actually curled on the couch eating my way through a dizzying proportion of the household’s food.

The elusive creature, the Person I Want to Be, does her assignments each week without fail. She uses illness as an excuse to get ahead with them rather than an excuse to revisit Enid Blyton and the Saddle Club series.

She does her dishes straight after a meal.

She pays her bills on time and gets up early, no matter how warm and comfy her bed is.

She drinks two litres of water a day.

She puts others first happily, unquestioningly and without fail.

She saves her money.

Mostly, though, she makes me very cross. She’s always there. Showing me up. Sometimes I can choke down my resentment, my indignation, long enough to do as she does.

And, wondrously, she disappears.

I am alone, doing the dishes. Alone, exercising. Alone, doing my assignments. Alone, drinking my two litres of water and avoiding junk food.

Solitude, really, never feels better. And so what if my murky future-self is still enveloped in shadows and layers of choices (not yet made), the unexpected and the unplanned? As long as I can do some things without seeing the elusive creature out of the corner of my eye, life’s pretty good (and I’m not doing too badly in it).

By Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones

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