The Ugly Duckling

It's a story we all know. Looking back at this little children's story now I find I can still relate, still apply it to my life and my ways of thinking. Now I realise that it is not just the literal ugliness of the duckling that begged for a transformation. It was his entire essence, for lack of a better phrase.

He was different, unknowingly special, drifting silently at the back, moving just a little slower than those around him. He knew he was different and did not know what to do with that knowledge. He longed to belong where he just didn't fit. Of course this did not help his case at all. He continually tried to measure up, fighting to be the same as, on the same level with, equal to, those perhaps lower than he was and destined to be.

Sometimes I find myself acting like the ugly duckling. I know better. I know I am different. I don't fit, I don't think in the same way, my course is guided differently, in a different direction and to a different height to those around me. Yet I constantly ask myself..."how do I measure up?".


It's always the question at the back of my mind every time I see the blank page or the blank computer screen in front of me. I think about the writers I like to read. The books I have read that make me want, I mean really WANT, to turn the page. I think of the greats to the not so greats, to the "ooops we forgot you there"s and ask myself silently, almost in a whisper, Krys, hunny, how do you measure up to these people? Where am I within that range and further what am I going to do about it? I waddle awkwardly along, tripping over my feet and imagining the world as a wide space in which there is no room for me.

Lately I have been thinking, how does one measure anyway? What criterion are we expected to meet to satisfy the need to feel "part of"?

Do you measure against others?

I know every start is different. In life, not just writing now, I realise that where I am now, so eager to leave, to make the next step, is the pinnacle of someone elses life. They have spent their whole life working to get where I am only passing through. My top is not your top. My steps may mirror yours may even cover yours but in some way we will never really understand what the other is facing. That is the truth of it so no I cannot measure against others. Your interests are not mine. In my writing I want to write fiction. That means looking around me I can congratulate your news article and wish you well in your field. Read and enjoy your blog. Watch your face on TV and instead of thinking "I'm wasting time, that could have been me!" wish you well and do more writing...probably a story about the evil news writer..lol. I find I feel jealous sometimes. Slow and clumsy looking up and other gracefully gliding past me. That won't work. Measuring up to others just won't work.

...against earnings?
Well since I have not really gained much from my publishing I guess that approach would just be silly.

...against your own goals?

This is tricky cause then...do I look to where I want to be? or where I have been? I have set my goals. If my degree was any indication of my personal strength then I am super strong. In the end I almost gave up. I was thinking, this is taking too long, I won't be able to use a degree in Literature any way, what the hell was I thinking, maybe I should do another, I'm tired, maybe i don't need one at all. I thought everything except...
I can do this!

From now on I've decided to measure up with myself. Look at where I am, where I want to go and how I'm going to get there and turn a blind eye to external factors around me.

I am a strong spirit guided by even stronger spirits. I have the power to rise from ashes and shine brilliantly. Maybe today I am an ugly duckling but something in me knows that soon I'll blind the world with beauty.