Never too late
A possibility for living
I wanted to be a writer from the time I was about 8 or 9 years old. I had no idea what that meant but that’s what I wanted. I wanted to write. I do not think it was to even write a book it was just to write. It seemed the most wonderful thing in the world to put words on paper and have them make sense. I was in love with writing and when I did not write there was always the world of books where I could read other writer’s words.
To be fair I also wanted to be a ballerina and a fashion designer, no fire trucks or airplanes for this girl. So, I went to ballet classes and I drew stick figures with clothes on them. On reflection it was the same dress either short or long, with sparkles or not. It was a quite simple idea. The ballet classes went on for five years and then I dropped that for Latin American dancing for a short time, but the dream was slipping away. I was a teenager now and my head was filled with not being good enough and not making it and even though I auditioned and became a dancer on an early children’s television program in New Zealand, the dream disappeared when I was too young to audition for an adult show and that was the end of that. The 9-year-old fashion designer had stopped drawing by this time and life was full of other adventures and boys.
But the writer never left. She holed up inside and kept knocking at my heart. Life and time move on and over the years I wrote poems, ideas, daily writing exercises from time to time and even lists, anything to put words on paper but never more than that but the light kept burning. At 61 and unable to work I enrolled for online learning. I decided if I cannot work, I can learn and little by little, 6-week course by 6-week course I found I liked learning. I looked forward to studying new things. I liked that I got good marks and I liked it even more when I got great marks. I learnt about women in art, the significance of Maunga (mountains) for Maori in New Zealand, I learnt about Heidegger and I even learnt about luxury fashion management from an Italian university and that was when I decided I was ready to do my first degree at University. So, I called up and booked my first semester of study, I needed no pre-requisites and I liked the sound of the topic. I was so excited and then the first essay was due, and I struggled, I cried, my head felt like it would literally explode from the pressure, I felt ill and I had arguments with my husband, but I would not give up.
This was what I had said I had wanted for 40 years and I could not stop at this first hurdle, and so I wrote, painfully awful word by word but the first paper went out and then the second paper and I passed, no big result, a credit but it was enough to keep going. I was over the line and that was all that mattered. I registered for my second paper and I noticed it had a one at the beginning of the class code, my mind started to race as I recalled that the first paper had a three in front. I had begun with a third-year paper. I am not saying this to brag, but I knew if I could pass a third-year paper about a topic I knew nothing about I could just take the steps and keep going. Now I am on my 11th unit and the essays still manage to pull me up and down and sideways, but I get there. My commitment nowis to complete my master’s degree by 70.
I have not become a fashion designer or a ballerina, but I have become a writer. My 8-year-old is satisfied, and my 65-year-old is content each time I sit down to write, my body and heart are in sync with one another. I am wondering what long held dream is knocking at your heart and mind? I invite you to discover what is pulling on you. Do it hard or do it easy but most of all just do it and let your 8-year-old self-have a blast. As I write this, I am beginning to wonder, am I really too old to be a ballerina?
