Authenticity

This is something I have struggled with so much in my life. Growing up, we didn’t have much money. I went to a very good primary school and was surrounded by exceptionally rich children on all sides. Although I was awarded a bursary for Grade 8, I begged my parents to please move me to another school, which they did. Here I had an opportunity to totally reinvent myself, be a new person, because nobody liked Junior School Hayley, not even Hayley. She was soft, she was super smart, and a real do-gooder.

So come high school, I now had the opportunity to become Cool Hayley. She was a terror to teachers, and didn’t care about her school work, but man was she popular. Other girls wished they could be as daring as I was. I was on fire. My marks were shocking, and my reputation quite tatty with the teachers, but finally I was accepted and I was cool!

And then I left school, and started clubbing with my best friend from childhood (actually who am I kidding, Cool Hayley started catching trains into Joburg CBD at 15). And now I was competing with her for the attention of boys. Never having been particularly pretty, or having the nicest clothes, or hair style, I morphed into the person I saw she was when she spoke to boys. I tried my best to imitate her every move.

Then I raced straight into moving in with my boyfriend, and by 22 I was engaged and a mom. So my twenties were all about being first a wife and mom, and then a single mom, and by the time I turned around, I was late thirties and I had no clue who Hayley was. Cool, nerdy, mommy, who knew what the DNA was, and what made the engine run. Sure as hell not her!

I was superbly fortunate in that I was nudged at the age of 37 by meeting some phenomenal life teachers, who made me see that I was not only okay, no matter what life, ,y family, my friends, my teachers had told me. I was in fact INCREDIBLE and I could stop fighting EVERYBODY and be at peace with Hayley the Authentic. That people would not only like her, but love her. that marching to the beat of her own drum was something that made her actually create her OWN music! My path is ever ongoing, but how I wish I had known from a young age that I would be okay. that the Universe had me and what a beautiful butterfly I would one day be.

Just be you, everybody else is taken.