Dancing

And of course, there were the other dancing girls.  Yes, I followed my mother and danced.  And I was good at it.  It was something in which I felt secure and it gave me a way to get my mother’s approval.  She even went so far as to start her own very successful dancing school to facilitate my dancing.  How amazing is that?

The dancing school was very popular.  Okay, so it was the only one in our area, but also my mother was well qualified and an excellent teacher.  She was hard on us, especially me, but it brought out our best.  We learnt modern, tap and acrobatics and took part in many a show to raise money for local charities.  These shows were a huge part of our lives and most of what we did revolved around them.

This must have been hard for my brother to accept, but that is another story altogether.

It’s funny, but when I look back, I realise that my dancing was what kept me going.  That and the theatre – a place where I could be anything that I wanted to be.  And definitely not me!  Even later in life, through High School and into adulthood, the theatre continued to provide an escape for me.  A place where I could be the person I really wanted to be.  It gave me the chance to play a part and be someone who wasn’t sullied and worthless.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what I believed I was – sullied and worthless.  Of no value to society or to those around me.  Nothing but trouble to anyone who came into contact with me.  And I mean trouble with a capital ‘T’!!  I actually believed that God had put me on this earth so that when he was in a bad mood, he had someone to take it out on.