What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

What do you want to be when you grow up? Or what “did” you want to be when you grew up? When you were a kid and adults asked you this question, what did you say? What dreams did you have? For most of my young life my answer was “a dancer”. Because that was what I was told I wanted to be and was the only acceptable answer. Growing up I was never encouraged to explore different possibilities. Life was geared to one thing ..... dance. All music in our house was classical, ballet scores, or from musicals (movie/broadway). And we watched all the old movie musicals on television. Carousel, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. Oklahoma. Sound Of Music. White Christmas. To name a few. The movie personalities I knew were the likes of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly , Donald O'Conner. I wasn't familiar with any tv personalities or popular music, which added to my alienation from other kids my age. I didn't go to concerts or even know who was who. Everything was geared to the arts. As a young tween I met Rudolph Nureyev, who told me to quit dance because it was too hard a life. And I was in the audience the night Baryshnikov defected. My mother and I attended as guests of a school friend and her mother. Theatre outings were not in my family's budget.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I was never encouraged to think outside the box. Never encouraged to try new things. Step outside the comfort zone. Or to dream of what 'could' be. In contrast I was taught to fear anything that did not align with dance. I don't know how to play any sports & quite honestly now have almost zero interest in sports. Neither of my parents were sports oriented (although in later life I discovered that my dad enjoyed watching soccer) and we were not indoctrinated into the sports fan culture. I was told that things like tennis and swimming would give me big shoulders. Horseback riding would give me a big butt and that was not desired in a ballet dancer. Tap dancing or Irish dancing would develop large calf muscles that were not appealing . Ballet dancers were to have long lean muscles .... smooth lines. Ballerina's were to look delicate even though physically strong. And God forbid you should break a bone!! I lived in abject terror of breaking an arm or a leg, because it was drummed into me by both my mother and ballet teachers, that if you broke a limb you would never dance again. And dance was all I had. To do something that would risk breaking a bone would be irresponsible. It would be to have wasted my parents money on dance lessons. To throw away my future for some “fun” would have been unforgiveable.

 

What do you want to “be” when you grow up. That was the question .... what do you want to BE. Not what do you want to “do”. And we're expected to want to be something that will make our parents proud. I've been binge watching the show Bones on dvd and recently saw an episode in which Brennen is distressed that her brilliant 6yr old daughter doesn't want to follow in her footsteps and become a forensic anthropologist. The little girl says she wants to be a car salesperson like one of her classmates fathers. Brennen is opposed to this choice. No child of hers is going to be a car salesperson. Booth tells her the child is 6yrs old, she's going to change her mind a dozen times before she grows up. It's important that they support whatever she wants to do. She needs to make her own choices. If only life could parallel a tv script! But I was raised that what you “do” reflects on your family. And because the path chosen for me was dance, I had to embark on that profession early in life because it takes your entire childhood to develop that skill. It takes a lifetime of training to achieve the goal of becoming a professional ballet dancer. The career was chosen and it was the label I wore. It was my identity. And when I left dance I had no identity. Well .... I guess my new identity was “failure”. I had wasted my entire life . I knew nothing about the world. I knew nothing about popular culture or music. I didn't know how to do anything but dance. Injury forced me out of ballet and into other dance genres (jazz, tap, ballroom etc) where I was completely out of sync. So out of place. I stepped out of my comfort zone of classical everything and into a world where the only thing familiar to me was the actual function of movement to music. Classically trained individuals have a really difficult time adjusting to freer types of movement, and generally look out of place trying. Classical ballet is very structured and lines are really important. Emphasis is on lifting oneself up and appearing to almost 'float' across the floor. Other genres were about getting down into the floor. Feeling the ground underneath you. In classical dance energy is lifted upwards. In other dance styles, energy is directed downwards .... more earthy. Less structured movements ..... looser, freer body movement. Very strange and awkward for the classically trained body. Ballroom was my favourite genre at first because it leaned to the classical style. It never occurred to me to venture into a profession outside of dance . Migrating to different styles of dance seemed like the only life choice. Afterall, I'd spent my entire life working towards a single goal. I had no idea what else might be out there.

 

In her book, Becoming, Michelle Obama addresses the question, what do you want to be when you grow up. She postulates that we can be (are) many things throughout our lives. Reflecting on this suggestion I can break my life down and see that I've been many things. I've been a dancer. A choreographer. Dance coach to a competitive skater. Dance teacher. Back up singer. Performer (tv/movies). Veterinary receptionist. Veterinary technician. Surgical assistant (veterinary field). Pet sitter. Seamstress. Animal casting directer. Animal wrangler for film/tv/print/stage. Dog trainer. Primate trainer. Cat trainer. Pot belly pig trainer. Fledgling horse trainer. Flyball team captain. Author of several magazine articles and two books on dog training. Border Collie breeder. Producer of live dog sport shows. Lecturer. Caregiver to my dad. And advocate for my dad.

I've been a friend, a foe, a partner, a confidante. And yet, I don't know who I am or where my place is in this world.

Currently I guess the term mental patient would apply although it seems harsh. But a diagnosis of complex trauma, anxiety/depression, and participating in psychotherapy would seem to support the label. So back to the question, what do you want to “be” .....

I want to be loved, appreciated, cherished. I want to be happy and content. I want to be a trauma survivor.