My eldest daughter is returning to university and is enjoying every moment of the anticipation - new town, new people, new course, post-grad comfort.  

My youngest daughter is starting university and is suffering anxiety to the highest degree, tears, anger, vomiting, pale, shaky, a worried exhaustion and is to be found many times just staring into space. Same recipe, different cake.

When she is with her 6 new flat mates (6!!) I know she will zip on the Eleanor Rigby face and she will become that face. You know the one, we all do, I’d guess every one of us wears it at least sometimes. It is the face that says ‘this is the me I am willing to present to you’.  

With 6 brand new people to live with (6!!), with whom there is no foundation of trust or comfy slipper security, it is probably the wise choice, at least in the short term. 

And I wonder when, and if, it will come off.  Why do many of us still find it so hard to wear our own face?  The one that says ‘this is me, it’s what I have, accept it or shuffle on’.

Perhaps we all owe it to ourselves to stand just a little taller, just a little straighter, and say “take me or leave me, this is me”.

I’m going to find my son and tell him I need a cuddle. This is me. And he is very good at them. 

Love from

The room above the garage 

A Moodscope member.