What If Your ‘Plain Sailing’ Life Is Still Worth Writing About? | by Screebz | Aug, 2025

Have you ever looked at your life and thought, Am I figuring out who I am… or just finding new ways to procrastinate?

I’m 29 years old, I’m a self employed painter and decorator, female, kinda funny, quite particular (according to my partner) and a tad bit lost.

During the last six months I’ve been wanting to learn, grow and develop my skills to become more successful in life. Ive been listening to podcasts and books, to make me feel like I’m doing all the right things. But what I really need to figure out is.. well, me.

So here I am, writing under an alias, treating this like free therapy. If you’re reading this, you’re basically getting a tour of my brain – and maybe I’ll figure some stuff out along the way.

My life’s been pretty plain sailing. Not a complaint – I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had. But sometimes I wonder… because nothing dramatic has happened, do I have a story worth telling? Or do we all have one, even if it’s not headline-worthy?

I want to be able to give myself the grace to say yeah, that was hard, that had a significant part to play in who I am now.

I grew up in a small seaside county in the uk. Great place in the summer but absolutely fuck all to do in the winter. My earliest memories of feeling like I didn’t really fit in was primary school, probably around the ages of 6/7. Spring time would roll around and I would dread it because the boys got to wear shorts and the girls had to wear a summer dress. There was no option for girls to wear shorts nor the option for boys to wear dresses. And I remember it so well, I absolutely hated it. But the joys of being a child is you have a tantrum about it, told to get on with it, find your friends and then forget all about how that dress made you feel. Until the next time you have to put that dress on of course.

Throughout my childhood I always wanted to be in boys clothing, it was just cooler to me. Girls clothes to me always had to be pink and frilly and sparkly. I just wanted to look cool not like a princess. My mum would always hate taking me shopping because I’d always pull a face at what she’d pick out and then promptly give up and take me to the boys section. I did try to like the girls clothes but they never felt like.. well me?

I think what I’m trying to say here is that it wasn’t that I wanted to be a boy, I always knew I was a girl but I didn’t fit in with what society had picked out for me. Ultimately that has led me to feel badly for what I want to wear and what I feel most like me in. Even now, a grown (sort of) adult, I carry that uncomfortable feeling that it’s wrong to be in what I’ve always liked.

Maybe someone reading this will relate. Maybe not. But it’s a start – and a step outside my comfort zone to share a piece of myself with the wider world.

Who knows, maybe next time I’ll treat you to another thrilling episode of my “plain sailing” life.