I wish I was awesome.  I wonder what it feels like to be awesome.  To have done something special or worthwhile.

I have never done anything of any note.  Never won a race, or game, or competition.  Never got a medal.  Even my exam results were mediocre to bad.  Oh, I’ve done lots of stuff, had lots of experiences that others would give anything to have had.  I’ve ridden horses, dived to the bottom of the sea, ridden on the back of a motorcycle going at 100 mph.  I’ve starred in am-dram plays, and written stories and poems which people have said they liked.  I’ve been to fabulous, exotic, far-away places, and met wonderful people.  These days I garden, sew, cook, and still write stories and poems that people say they like and I’m pretty good when it comes to techie stuff. But honestly, I’m not good, not good good, at any of them.  Just ok. Mediocre.  Sometimes, that’s a bit depressing.

Watching some pretty awesome people on Strictly Come Dancing – Louis Smith and Victoria Pendleton, who have both won umpteen medals in their own disciplines, and Michael Vaughan, who led England Cricketers to win the Ashes in 2005, I can see that even though they are truly awesome, they can still be as awkward, self-conscious and insecure as me when they are out of their comfort zone.

I guess you just have to find your comfort zone.  My comfort zone is my home, and watching my daughters becoming successful, caring and beautiful people.  I consider them to be my biggest success.

I understand from others that I’m also quite good at listening.  I can’t begin to count the number of times people rang me at work ‘just to have a moan’ and at the end say,

‘Thanks, I feel better now’.

I was the matriarch (according to the dictionary ‘a venerable old woman’!) of the organisation, the go to lady when life was a pain. Ok, I never did anything, and usually couldn’t come up with much in the way of words of wisdom.  But perhaps being able to make someone feel better just by listening is a teeny bit awesome.

And shhh…don’t tell anyone, but I realise now that perhaps we’re all (yep, even me) a teeny bit awesome on the quiet.