Maybe second is best

High school was hard for me. Aside from all the usual crap that you go through i.e. girls being bitches, periods, spending the day crying, raging or melancholic because of those bloody hormonal imbalances there was one thing that kept happening to me over and over again that has traumatised me for life.

The P.E. lesson.

The absolute horror of the P.E. lesson shook me to my very core. I was awkward and desperate to be liked so I was a bit try-hard which made me weird. I was also very, very shit at sport. Every.single.sport. Due to my butter fingers, inability to run fast or just normally instead of like Phoebe in that episode of Friends or just general shitty co-ordination I was never picked for the team, I was always left standing with the “losers” (seriously, high school, you suck) never quite realising I was one of them. There was a girl who thought she was “so lush” (she wasn’t) but she was very, very good at netball and was on the school team and much to her dismay she landed little ol’ me when we were playing basketball one day. After a lot of dirty looks and “How did I get stuck with that stupid bitch” et al comments the game started. This lesson played out like a frigging movie.

There wasn’t much time left – mere minutes – we were sweaty, drained but desperate. One basket was all we needed to win. One little basket. I was down the end being basket defender or whatever and I was probably biting my nails or thinking about lunch and out of the corner of my eye I saw the ball revolving towards me in slow motion and for some reason I put my hands up. I am a dropper, what the hell was I thinking? Well, I only bloody caught it and I had a split second decision to make I heard “PASS IT HERE NOW, BITCH” and I heard a little voice in my head say “launch it”

I launched it.

Adrenaline was passing through my veins I heard “what the fuck did you do that for?” but then I saw the ball GO IN THE BLOODY BASKET! And then the whistle blew. See, actual movie scene right there. It was a fluke, we all know that, but I did it, I fully nailed it. What was the most beautiful part of that moment? No one would ever think that I would do that. They wouldn’t be surprised if Mouthy girl did it but me – what a bloody shock! Huzzah for the underdog.

The elation was short lived when next P.E. lesson I was still a consolation to the team rather than picked.  It sounds ridiculous but that feeling of ‘you don’t pick me, you settle for me’ hasn’t really left. My sister was wild and care free and so goddamn popular. She decided to work in America by herself at 19 and when it didn’t work out she came home then moved to Leeds and just before she died she had got a job in London and was going to move there just to try something new. I could never be like that. I’m a bloody scaredy cat and my anxiety eats me for breakfast. I have many grand ideas that never amalgamate because of ‘the fear’. My brother was always neat and tidy, a really hard worker and good with money. When faced with becoming a Dad at 18 he worked his bollocks off in really shitty jobs just to provide and then followed my father’s footsteps and joined the Police force. I didn’t get accepted to the Police force. I also got turned down for a million jobs in London as I wanted to work in the theatre after Drama College. My brother and sister seemed to get an idea and make it happen whereas I haven’t really amounted to much at all.

It feels like I get pipped at the post through most things. If you have watched Big Fish by Tim Burton I am the female equivalent of Don Price constantly on the side-lines watching Edward Bloom get everything that I want with the greatest of ease.

I got a C in Drama A level everyone else got B’s

I applied for supervisor in a job- the new guy got it

After weeks of tap lessons years ago I nailed the 5 beat ball riff- my best friend knocked out a 6 beat.

The same friend was always the attractive one of our twosome. The amount of times I was the approachable girl the guys could chat to as a way to get to my hot mate is unfathomable. Every single time we hit the club I would have lots of attention from super-hot guys and after chatting for a while they would be like “so, your mates hot! Is she single?” It felt reaaaaaaaaaaaaly good. I was the uglier friend, the fatter friend, the sensible one. Always the superfluous spare.

But through all of this something wonderful has blossomed for me. Like way back in the great basketball game of 1998, no one expects great things from me so when I do great things it’s even better. I have no pressure on me to be good at everything or anything so people get surprised when I come up with the goods. I’m the understated warrior of greatness and if I mess it up its okay because people kind of expect me too anyway. It’s a win-win.

My greatest achievements are as follows:-

My Kids- Some people may groan or think anyone can have kids but my kids shit all over your kids. They are fucking cool. They are polite and creative and open and loving and weird and I love it. I let them know that all this stuff is fake news. As long as the try their hardest at whatever they are doing the outcome doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if they get 12 A*s as long as they try to their utmost capability. I even love them after saying that the first time my husband ever made a curry, it was the best curry they have ever had, even better than mine.

A hot guy with a really cocky attitude that I met in 2005 said to me that my hot friend wasn’t that hot and he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. He’s still married to me.

I am really good at selling useless crap on EBay

I can now get jelly out of a rabbit mould and it doesn’t go flaccid

I passed my driving theory and practical test first time.

I gave up smoking cold turkey.

I swam with a 14 foot Great white shark.

There will always be someone better but most of those people that made me feel that way aren’t in my life now. I don’t want toxic people around me that are happy letting me know that I am a resort, a booby prize, the diet coke. They ain’t worth a shred of my time. My friends in my life balance me out. They are better at me in most things but none of them can do the triple time step. They don’t expect incredible things from me because they already think I am incredible. They will give me the same amount of love and praise if I got a book published to if I managed to hold in a fart in in the cinema.  It doesn’t matter if you are the best at everything. It doesn’t matter if someone skinner or prettier gets the guy. You will achieve great things through your life without the constant pressure.

I’m tired of trying to impress people and to jazz up my life story. I’m married with two kids and I’m a receptionist. That’s pretty much it. I’m not destined for greatness. I’m not going to save the world. I’m not going to earn big bucks but I am going retain pointless animal facts that I just drop into conversation for no reason at all. I am going to annoy you with the fact that I can relate everything to Harry Potter. You can keep your awesome jobs or the fact that you own your own home while I still rent. You can keep your sporty kids that win trophies and your size 8 physique. I have spaghetti arms, I have no savings and most of my pants have holes in them. I am alright with this. A girl that had a really pointless vendetta against me once wrote on a club’s toilet wall (she was in her twenties when she did this, just saying) “Nicki T. Second choice is never best” well, I would rather be this than perfect.

I’ll never get over Johnny Depp not picking me to be his baby mama though. 

My body, the enemy

When I was younger, like all children, I was full of aspirations and dreams. My goal in life was to be a professional dancer. I was determined that when I was old enough I was going to move to New York and go to the High school of Performing arts to further my studies, jumping on a  yellow cab roof, singing “Fame” as loud as possible with my leg warmers keeping out the biting cold from those New York winds. I went to dance class four days a week and constantly danced around the house. I pirouetted in the lounge, tapped in the garden. I made my poor parents sit through my own dancing extravaganzas too many times. Whether or not I was actually any good I didn’t care because I never felt more alive than when I danced.

                Ballet was actually my strongest class and I moved on to pointe shoes pretty quick. I was born with an abnormal toe and this became painful whilst I danced. I was going to have corrective surgery on the toe eventually so it seemed a pretty good idea to move it forward. The worst news I heard was that I would have to stop dancing for two whole months whilst it healed.

                During my rest time something strange crept over my body. It was called puberty. It ruined my life (say that in a dramatic teenage angst voice for full effect) I chunked up big time. I wasn’t doing much exercise and eating everything I possibly could fit in my mouth so when I swaggered back into ballet class I had gone from kids clothes to a curvy 12. My teacher scanned my new voluptuous body and she made a comment that I will never forget to my dying day.

“You will never be a ballerina with a body like that”

I stopped dancing soon after, ashamed that I had let everybody down by gaining so much weight. I would be an embarrassment if I was on stage with all my fellow classmates. They were so slender and graceful whereas I was now this monstrous whale that cannot dance with a body like mine. I never wanted to wear tight Lycra again. Fast forward to twenty years or so and my body confidence is probably at the lowest it has ever been.

I am a massive foodie and whilst my diet is pretty well rounded I have three addictions which drag me down. Chocolate. Cheese. Pizza. I actually worry sometimes that my grave will say ‘she just wouldn’t put down the cheeseboard’.  I love food so much that I cannot do diets because as soon as I know I can’t have something I want to eat ten trucks of it. As a result of this, I now have regular meltdowns about my body. You do not want to be near me when I have to go out-out unless you are good at catching rage-filled flying items. There is only one reason why this is happening.

My stomach is not flat.

I don’t know who made the rules that a stomach should be flat but it seems that it is indeed the rule. As a woman you are supposed to have a perfectly round, pert cellulite free bum. Hips with no extra love handle meat. Boobs that are big enough for men to play with but not too big so you have to wear ugly, supportive bras. No droopiness allowed either. A blemish free face, perfect straight teeth, no grey hairs, no body hair, full lips, arched eyebrows, manicured nails, no saggy knees. Not a single hint of a stretch mark but above all of this. A FLAT STOMACH.

 I have an hourglass figure, big hips, ample boobage but a small waist. It sounds pretty good right? Well it ain’t. All my recent weight gain has gone directly on to my stomach and my hips – the hardest place to work off. I cannot do any of my last summer shorts up. I am also pretty poor right now, so my options for an impending  sunshine holiday is either wear said bottoms with the button undone and hope they don’t fall down or try and go down a dress size in about 30 days. Obviously I chose to go with the latter, purchased a 28 day plan fitness cookbook and mentally prepared myself to be miserable and hangry for a month. Then I just thought, why?

I’m going on holiday with my husband who still finds me attractive and my kids that love me regardless so why do I feel the need to lose a stone in less than a month?

The answer is because of strangers. The ones that are sat on the poolside that – inside my paranoid anxious mind – are thinking that I shouldn’t be wearing a bikini with a body like that. The cool group of twenty somethings, fresh out of university that are thinking I shouldn’t be wearing shorts with a body like that. The athletic couple jogging on the beach, their perfectly shiny hair swaying side to side thinking ooh she should wear a sarong with a body like that. They are blatantly not thinking this. They probably won’t even be looking at me, unless I fall over which I tend to do. I constantly compare myself to my friends and celebrities, thinking my body is disgusting and I should change this and wear that. I can’t even imagine posting a picture without taking a billion different (yet the same) versions. I also need me them filters. God knows I can’t survive without a Valencia. I am thirty three and I have popped out two kids and I forget to mention I am in fact only a size 10/12. It makes no sense to why I feel so excruciatingly embarrassed by my body.

My body is actually astonishing. Looking past the external façade of it all, I am in awe of what my body has withstood. I have a load of surgeries, multiple on my heart.  A pre-cancerous cell cluster scraped from my cervix (which is also curved just to make it more unique i.e. difficult) without proper anaesthetic due to my complicated heart defect. I’ve put my whole arm through glass and bled so profusely I didn’t think I had any left in me. I’m prone to benign cysts. I collapse, I have severe panic attacks but most importantly I created actual human life. My internal body has never let me down. It may get broken from time to time but it always gets me better and makes me stronger.  It is just the most beautiful, resilient, incredible specimen. All of this yet I am literally making myself crazy because I have a bit of a jelly belly. This stops today. I am so sick of this utter horse shit. I want to be healthy and strong but I don’t want it at the cost of my happiness. I have cellulite on my ass; my husband still wants to grab it. I have stretch marks, scars, saggy knees, goofy teeth, a witchy chin, chunky thighs, a rounder tummy, massive love handles but they make me. That is who I am. The people that matter love me regardless. They like my kindness, my thoughtfulness, my witty humour. They don’t care if I ate one too many chocolate oranges. They are the voices that matter. Not some dance teacher that would smoke during class (true story) or some teenagers who asked once if I ate all the pies (I did, they were pork ones and they were fucking delicious!) not some clothes designer who thinks anyone over a size 0 is fat. Not some Kardashian who thinks that contoured, full lipped face with a naked body is the perfect role model look. I am not doing it. What I am going to do is go into my kitchen have some melted cheese and probably a chunky KitKat and look at all the fucks I used to give as I wave them all goodbye.

Nothing better than a woman

I became very aware around the age of thirteen that I fancied girls but coming from a Christian family that was heavily involved with church life I kind of knew it wasn’t “right”. I was living in a world where man and woman was the natural way of life.  My sister was a bit wayward. She listened to grunge and wasn’t down with God, a lot of our Christian friends weren’t particularly happy about it. If they could get mad at my sister for liking Nirvana then how would they treat me if they knew I wanted to kiss girls?

I struggled internally with these huge urges I had towards girls until I finally had an opportunity to explore. Saturdays were my dance days; I had a few classes back to back and spent most of the day out of the house. My friend and I decided to skip drama and go and try to smoke a cigarette she had taken from her mum’s purse. We hid under the pier down the beach and got talking about boys and she said she had never kissed a boy and she was worried that she would do “the washing machine” I said I had kissed a few boys so she asked me if I could teach her. As soon as our tongues touched I knew that it was right. I was meant to kiss girls. She freaked out and told me to never tell anyone what happened and ran off. I felt the softness of her lips linger on me for a long time.

                Things changed about a year later when I finally confided in a small circle of female friends that I was bisexual. Obviously, being a teenager in school, when shit like that goes down you don’t keep it to yourself. So – naturally - the whole year knew by the end of the day that I was now a stinking lesbian. I found school hard from then on. I got paranoid that female friends worried about being around me. I got sick of being called a dirty dyke by this one group of bitches. I got scared when that group followed me home and threw stones at me. I made sure I had boyfriends so people would forget about it. The worst part was when I realised I was fully in love with my best friend and I wanted nothing more than to kiss her. Unrequited love is a killer, especially the secret kind.

I became very good at hiding my bisexuality and could satisfy the urges with having the odd night out in a gay bar and doing some stuff in the toilets with random chicks. My first proper relationship with a girl suffered because I couldn’t cope with being openly Bi properly after years of oppressing it and the next possible relationship faltered because I was still hung up on my ex and acted like a complete twat to this beautiful woman. I felt like I never blossomed or belonged because I was too worried about how others perceived me. 

I am now a mother of two daughters and there are so many things I want for them in life but the biggest thing I want for them is to be true to who they are and too just not give a fuck about what others think. I spend an obscene amount of time teaching them about being strong and to love themselves more than anyone else. I encourage them to dress how they like, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I introduce them to all kinds of music so they never belittle anyone for their music choices. Mostly I teach them that no one is better than them but they are also not better than anyone. I tell them that no matter what they want to do, if they work hard, that can do it. I also teach them to be kind, even to people who aren't so kind to them because, although I don't want them to be pushovers I also think, in later years, they can look back and know that they weren't part of making other people feel sad. I hope that when my girls are older they can say that I was a good mum and that I taught them well. I hope that I have provided them with the important values a person needs like respect and kindness. I hope that courage and patience is above money and possessions. I hope they never judge anyone on anything they do and they support their loved ones with the choices that they make. I hope that they see beauty and experience love and cherish the moments of happiness and sorrow because they are the foundations on which you build your soul. I am lucky to have had so many females in my life whether it is in the shape of family, friend or lover. Every woman that I have met has done something which has helped to shape me but these are the few extra special women that deserve a mention.

Josephine March taught me that you don’t have to do what is expected of you

Hermione Granger taught me that being a nerd doesn’t make you a wimp

Gaynor Derham taught me that you can get dragged to hell but you can make it back home again

Natalie Thomas taught me that life is too short

Julia Titus taught me that having kids young doesn’t make you a failure it makes you a super hero

Samantha Jones taught me that it’s okay to just really love sex

Liz Phillips and Zoe Williams taught me that laughter is always the best medicine and that our friendship will only ever grow stronger and nothing will ever break the edamames.

Cat Rees taught me to never be taken for a fool again


Hannah Fitt has taught me to always keep going, regardless of the amount of shit that gets thrown your way

Ann Phillips taught me that women are tigers and you will hear us roar

Kani Barawi taught me fuck it!


Jo Chapman taught me determination is the biggest key to getting what you want (she also has the softest lips ever) (drunk birthday kisses)

Emma Hampson-Jones taught me that even when faced with utmost horror, nothing can break a woman's inner strength


Martha Richards taught me you don't ever need to rely on anyone to get you where you want to be. You are enough to get you where you want to be (Also salt lamps are life!)

Lisa Crew taught me that it’s okay to go to a really dark place to inspire the light


Beth Forbes Simpson taught me that having a massive love for someone isn't measured by time spent together and that idols come in all forms, even in the shape of a beautiful florist from Barry


Pineapple girl taught me that no fruit will ever be as tasty as a pineapple

Kate Winslet taught me that her boobs are pretty much perfection.

The list could go on for days as there are so many incredible women in my life. I feel at peace knowing that I have all these powerful characters looking out for me and enriching my femininity.

Women, I salute you.