I have decided that I should stop using the words ‘former’ and ‘latter’ to refer to my two personae, partly because it would be too confusing without referring back to the previous post all the time, and partly because ‘the former’ sounds too final – in the past, done and dusted, it is no more.
I have been thinking about Melinda and Belinda a lot recently. Because Belinda tends to be the fallback position in unfamiliar situations, people tend to see her first, and then think I have ‘changed’ when (if) Melinda puts in an appearance. I’m thinking about the personnel manager in my first job, who when I left, said, ‘you’re a different girl from when you first came here’. In response to my comment that I would probably go back into my shell, his response was ‘oh no, you mustn’t do that’, as though I had any control over it. Because, the point is, I don’t have any control over it. And, or course, I was right, and Melinda sank without a trace, only starting to re-emerge after about 7 years.
Yes, I would like to keep them both in equal measure. But there are two conditions that encourage Melinda to appear: one is being with people I am comfortable with (but how to achieve that?) and the other, paradoxically, is being away from home, with people who have no expectations of me. When I look back over my life, I can see how the two of them have ebbed and flowed. But on the whole I don’t have a clue how it happens.
Having Melinda around can be very exciting and exhilarating, but is also quite risky, the main risk being, that I get too fond of her ways, but know that she won’t stay. So, I get used to being Belinda and come to terms with that, then a potential Melinda opportunity arises, and I get panicky because 1) she may not turn up and I may just be left there feeling tongue-tied and more lonely than ever, or 2) she turns up, but then I have to come home/go back to normal, and am left dissatisfied with Belinda’s simple pleasures, and have to come back to terms with life as Belinda again. So I think maybe it would be safer just to write Melinda off completely and forget about her. Because I can’t be her all the time, and that’s all there is to it.