Wishing Only Love.

WOC in Wellbeing

Marissa McCallam

Mar 9

WOC in Wellbeing

'Mixed other'. That magically ambiguous box found on most demographic surveys. If you're very lucky you get an additional line of free-text to elaborate on your 'otherness'. I've yet to go completely rogue and tick the 'Rather not say' box although, the additional layer of mystery is quite appealing. Labels are an interesting one, often used as a form of shorthand, with them can also come assumption, stereotyping and close-mindedness. This is something I explored in 'Labelled

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When Positive feels Negative

Marissa McCallam

Feb 22

When Positive feels Negative

I tested positive for Covid-19 in January of this year. There was an element of inevitability - my partner worked in a school providing support for key-worker children and we lived in an area with one of the highest rates of infection. When it entered our household, I took it as a personal challenge not to contract it in the first place then, when I did, not to let it interfere with what I wanted to do. Initially symptoms felt relatively mild - the smallest of coughs with occ

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No Body to Love

Marissa McCallam

Jan 12

No Body to Love

I didn't have a full length mirror in my home for many, many years. My body was split up into what I could fit in the bathroom mirror when standing as far back as possible or, what I could capture with a compact one, scanning myself up down like I was checking for radiation. To see my body in it's entirety was a novelty and rarely pleasurable. It felt separate and disobedient, consistently presenting something that wasn't quite the right shape or density. Don't. Look. Down. I

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Letting go of the need to know

Marissa McCallam

Dec 21, 2020

Letting go of the need to know

As someone who, until a few years ago, was typically placid and agreeable, I imagined that I could 'go with the flow'. But, as I considered the the twinge of discomfort I felt whenever plans would change last minute, or if something got in the way of my routines, it became apparent that maybe I was change-averse. I plodded along, avoiding change where possible for years and, as a result, was unhappy. Not desperately so, just enough to provide a background noise of discontent.

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That's not a tickle in your throat, it's an urge to shout.

Marissa McCallam

Dec 9, 2020

That's not a tickle in your throat, it's an urge to shout.

I took a deep breath, buried my face in the pillow and screamed. What I thought would be a guttural roar came out as the pained cry of a wounded animal. It was years of anger coated in sadness and disappointment. I had been ignoring it, suppressing it, storing it in my body until it felt convenient to release it. It had been waiting impatiently for me to acknowledge it. Sending signals of skin flare-ups and teeth grinding in my sleep. What had paved the way for this release?

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'Hi, I'd like a refund on my 2020, please...'

Marissa McCallam

Nov 3, 2020

'Hi, I'd like a refund on my 2020, please...'

You're hoping to return it because it's faulty, not at all what you expected, quite disappointing really. You've looked at it and there are bits missing, in fact, it doesn't fit you at all. It looked perfectly fine beforehand. You were ready for it, perhaps assuming it would be similar to the 2019 model. Not amazing, but relatively predictable and something you could perhaps just leave in the background whilst you did the same things in the same ways you always had. But this

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Buy Yourself Something Nice.

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What I thought about, I brought about.

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Stop pretending to be an imposter.

2020 got me like Popeye...

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