Singing along very, very badly to 'Survivor' by Destiny's Child.

Just to get one thing out of the way and clear:

My 7 year old son does ballet. People occasionally look at me a bit oddly and sideways when I reveal this fact, but I’ll sum up the reasons why:

1) He enjoys it.

2) He really enjoys it.

3) DID I MENTION HE REALLY ENOYS IT?

Now that’s out of the way, I was chatting with some of the other ballet parents today (who I love by the way, they’re a hilarious bunch of genuinely interesting people) about working a low wage shop job and how government support for families like mine is rapidly shrinking. Therefore I’m slightly green with envy at some of their fabulous sounding careers and pay packets. But I can see why they are comparatively further on in their careers despite the age gap not being massively huge. It’s all down to timing i.e., not graduating in an economic downturn and the different paths we choose.     

Initially I wanted to be a performer (actually, initially I wanted to be an archaeologist, but when I realised it was less ‘Indiana Jones’ and more ‘Time Team’ my interest quickly waned). Miraculously I was accepted to one of the country’s top stage schools, ‘Italia Conti’, at the age of 17. I think I must have pulled out a very convincing, totally fluky audition that day as this is an institution rammed full of some very good looking, super talented people who ooze charisma, charm and confidence like it’s carbon dioxide. People like me: ginger, geeky, stammery, odd, likes hiding behind their own hands and rarely answers the telephone to strangers through sheer fear were very few and far between.

I found the ambition and drive of some of the other students very, very full-on scary.  But that’s how driven you have to be in the entertainments industry. In my late teens, my idea of being ‘driven’ was in the back of my Dad’s car. It’s not that I didn’t want to work for it and I was lazy, it was that I was too frightened to truly go for it. Fear has always been my bitterest and oldest enemy.  I lacked ambition and definitive direction through fear of saying what I wanted and being ridiculed for it. If I can pass just one thing onto my kids it would be this: Fear is a part of life, but do not let it control you or it will stop you, learn to control it.

I knew that performing wasn’t right for me when I realised I just did not have it in my bones and blood like some of the other kids, it did not motivate me out of bed, it was not my reason for getting up in the day. It dragged me half-heartedly and blearily eyed into the dance studio the majority of the mornings but I knew once I graduated I wasn’t passionate enough or competitive enough to push through the constant rejection that is a career in the performing arts, although I refused to see this at the time despite it staring me in the face in the mirror every morning for three years. More to the point, I was just not, for a myriad of reasons, mentally resilient enough for it. I felt like I was going to die on the spot if I didn’t get to do it for a career, but that’s more because I just didn’t know what else to do, life felt huge, overwhelming and terrifying. I was PARALYZED BY FEAR at this very thought.

Not long after graduating Conti’s and with frightening speed, myself and Ed found we were expecting a baby. This changed my total life outlook. It was like a weird overnight transformation. Once I became a mother I was willing to push myself academically, professionally and personally in a way that I just wasn’t able to before, the fear didn’t go away, but I learnt to deal with it. I had to. Nothing is as scary as a responsibility for a tiny, helpless person. In comparison to that, I can do anything. I turned into some kind of ‘must achieve, must achieve MUST ACHIEVE!’ obsessive. I don’t want to be written off, underestimated, patronised and belittled purely because I have reproduced another human being and did so relatively young. I wanted to get a decently waged job and provide for my family and the obvious route to get one, at the time, appeared to be University. My Conti’s diploma just wasn't going to cut it as proof that I was academically competent apparently! So I put myself through an access course coupled with a minimum wage job to get myself to University. Once there, as well as the standard Uni workload I also had to work 20 hours a week, again in a variety of minimum wage jobs to support our basic financial needs, like eating. The overall goal was to finally have a graduate level job.

Now I’ve had to scale back my ambitions, which I have spent the last decade being doggedly determined and persistent in my pursuit of, now I’d be happy for a modest paying, 9-5 job, that doesn’t involve being yelled at by randomers and I am still not there yet!  

I’m starting to think, career ambition. Meh. Can’t we all just go live on a commune? When the nuclear Armageddon happens that’s what will happen anyway right?   

I suppose this is what is driving me to create an iPhone App from scratch, the inability to get a decently paid career in this current economic climate. I think the fact I went to a stage school and also that my degree was in Chinese suggest something else too: I’m always driven to do something a little bit different.

I’m not frightened of failure any more, I have failed repeatedly, spectacularly with many, many things and NOTHING has killed me yet. I’ve made myself look a fool, stuck my neck on the chopping block and lived with the results of my decisions. While the career might not be there, everything else is. I have a cracking family of boys, therefore life is pretty damn great. I’m grateful.  So there. IN YOUR FACE FAIL FEAR.