When I was younger, I never believed we lived in a meritocracy. I wanted to believe it could be true, but the poverty all around me and the disparity between the lives of my peers at school and the lives of the kids on the estate I grew up on felt stark.

I still don’t believe we have a meritocracy in the UK, but I now know social mobility can happen for some because it has happened for me. I thought earning a good wage, saving money and climbing the social ladder would make life easier, and it has done to a great extent. However, I was not prepared for the loneliness and guilt it left me with. This has been a more tricky route to navigate with blurred lines and challenges I was not prepared for.

Growing up, I knew money was tight when we had cheesy mash for dinner more than four nights in a row. Some of my favourite memories were of bin diving for our packed lunch food (sounds bad but honestly, the food supermarkets throw away is a tragedy). Today, I have the privilege to never worry about having food on my plate and have even started shopping at Waitrose. But even this small act of classless defiance – shopping in a high-end supermarket and wanting to eat well – has left me feeling like I am doing something wrong. Like I am taking something from those less fortunate.

When I started university, I struggled to make friends. I felt different, out of place and, despite my academic success, like I just wasn’t meant to be there. It took years of isolating myself and trying to change who I was before I realised that my childhood and working class roots could be a source of pride rather than shame.

Another moment my changing class hit me hard was when my boyfriend asked me if I wanted to go travelling or live abroad with him one day. I instantly burst into tears, I was quite literally inconsolable. This may sound strange, what a nice thing for him to want to do with me, right? In that moment, I had to stare my inner working class child in the face, the one with cheesy mash for dinner and £4 school shoes from ShoeZone. Travelling and living abroad felt like a distant reality and one that she didn’t deserve.

This sense that enjoying my life and having nice things was in some way taking away from those less fortunate still permeated my mindset. I have been moving away from the classic working class stereotype for a long time, probably my whole life to be honest, yet the loneliness and guilt I feel for being able to afford things and having dreams beyond my childhood peers still remains.

I am learning to own who I am now and as a 27 year old woman who has undergone many many years of therapy, I have learnt to love every part of my life, even the shit bits. Being working class, I always thought, was inextricably tied to having a loud and argumentative family (or ‘being gobby’ which I apparently was), wearing certain clothes (i.e. tracksuits and blingy earrings), poverty and small dreams. Now I realise that my working class roots taught me invaluable lessons – how to be resourceful in the face of struggle, how to find joy in little things, the meaning of family, the importance of honesty and the value of resilience.

Despite still having moments of sadness at the struggle of my inner child and still crying sometimes when I try to imagine an abundant future for myself, I am coming to terms with all of the confusion of social mobility. I am happily middle class with working class woven into my seams. I love literature, drum and bass, Nike Air Max, walks in the woods, poetry, gritty gang movies, raving with my parents, crocheting with my friends.

We are all a messy mix of so many things, and for many people, class doesn’t matter and means very little in their lives. I now know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in my life and can find inner peace in knowing I have many stripes on the flag of my life.