Alexandra Beech on Becoming the Person I am happy to be
How nice to be a guest blogger. It is lovely to be in someone else's space and having a natter.
As you read this I am a bit older than when I was writing it, as it was my birthday yesterday the 28th June. I am now 44 and I don’t feel embarrassed about sharing that with you as I feel I am in that happy place where I never expected to be.
It is not that I have had a bad life. On the contrary I had a happy childhood and averagely happy adulthood so far. It has been pretty...average. I met my husband in my thirties, and had a child at 35. That was better than averagely happy. From then on I have been on the path to who I really am.
I do not want you to read this and think ‘uo oh- she is wittering on about herself’. Well, ok yes I am a bit. But I am more talking about how you should feel confident in being you.
It has taken me some 40 years to be happy being the odd person I am. Happy enough to wear yellow t-shirts and dye my hair a vibrant red and happy enough to say – yes I am self-employed and I sew, I make buttons.
I work with children (when I am not making buttons). You can see their fear of being different but their desire to be who they are. I remember that, do you? I try to explain that it is ok to be different, to stand out, that the people who do are the ones who become something in the world.
My daughter is a huge Tintin fan, and this year she dressed as Snowy, Tintin’s dog. I made the costume and she was so very happy to wear it. Of course, some children laughed and she was in tears. I felt terrible and I blogged about it, and received lots of lovely support from my readers and crafty friends. I tried to tell my daughter that she looked great and that other children might be jealous, and pick on anyone that looked a bit different than the usual Disney Princess. Now, a few months later she is talking about next year’s competition. She wants to be Captain Haddock (complete with beard). I asked her if she would worry about people saying anything because she was not dressed as a pretty girl. ‘No,’ she replied ‘it is good to be something different’. Of course I was pleased and I hope that her confidence in herself is growing so that she can cope with outside knocks, and that it will not take her 30 years to be happy with who she is.
Until recently, if someone asked me what I do, I was really embarrassed and used to laugh and mutter something about sewing, blah, blah. I am confident to answer now that I sew, I make buttons and accessories. I mean if I am embarrassed about it for goodness sake, why should someone else be interested in what I do? It has also helped greatly to have the support of like-minded people that I have met in the crafting world, through Etsy, Folksy, forums like Crafteroo and Popular Crafts, and on Facebook and Twitter. Also, I have become better known and have had tutorials and been featured in a couple of magazines. I have even made buttons for the film industry (details to be released later but it is all rather exciting!). It is a circle of confidence: - I become happy and confident - I am proud of my work and want to show it - I become better known - I become happier and confident, etc
So this is what I want to say – dye your red red and.., no not that. Be yourself, you are great!
http://www.bigbluebed.co.uk
http://www.bigbluebed.blogspot.com
http://www.etsy.com/people/bigbluebed
Twitter: @bigbluebed
