Monday 6 March 2017

Swimming through traffic lights

As I type, I write to you with a notably fast beating heart.The moment before this one I turned down another performing job. One which I might have jumped at earlier in my career. But one which I know isn't the quality of aerialist work that I dedicated myself to pursuing at the beginning of this particular leg of my journey. In doing so, I face the very real fear of a lack of control of the future.

And now here I am; writing this article with a celebratory pot of tea to one side of me and an empty, entirely unemployed day ahead of me.


I returned from America 10 months ago now. On a nondescript weekday morning all those months ago I landed in London without a single dollar or pound sterling to my name, a small backpack of clothing hurriedly packed in the heat of the moment (I somehow packed a spanner, none of my favourite clothes, and someone else's toothbrush rather than my own) along with a pretty severely broken heart. I had come away from England 6 months beforehand to embark on an adventure of circus life, borne from a deep faith in love. Perhaps it was a deep love in faith that I needed, instead.


10 months on - what's changed? Well, pretty much everything in terms of the look and feel of my life. I have never been happier, or living more freely, I'm happy report. My days are filled with dance and aerial training, commissioned writing, and my performing work. I have made a life in Oxford, and a world for myself that makes me a lot happier. 


How did this happen? I made a singular change. One which was long overdue. A simple choice that has changed my daily life ever since. 


I have never feared jumping ship from a place I am not happy. I was the child who left her own primary school aged ten due to not agreeing with the ethical values of the teacher, telling my parents on our way home that I would like to be home educated until I found a school I could believe in. I don't remember stopping to think about it for too long. I felt enabled on that drive home, and quietly excited for what may come next.


What are you afraid of? Spiders? Heights? Saying no? We all pick up our own little collective of earned and learned fears as we move through our days. Some stick, some are overcome. Some melt away, through that magical process of time passing without our realising. But what might happen if we stood face on with each, and really enquire as to the reason for their presence? 


I didn't start the journey with thrill seeking, in case you were wondering. I left the knife swallowing to the professionals, and I still use zebra crossings properly. But I did start with the most immediate fear that was blocking my life. Letting go of needing to be with someone I was addicted to being with. With no future plans for reunion or replacement. I had to change my number, address, and life path to move towards an independent pathway, without knowing I would have someone there to hold my hand (or indeed pull me backwards).


I changed my focus, and with it, my standards. 


A few months before my return I had shaved all of my hair off, documented in a previous article. This itself was deemed as brave at the time. But to me, it was another transference. I knew the hair could grow back. I knew I didn't need waist length hair to do the work I was doing at the time. I was with someone who I thought would accept me for all that I was. I was giving my long red hair to children who didn't feel comfortable with their appearance now that chemotherapy had taken their hair own hair from them. It felt right, through and through. And so, without an element of personal risk, would you still say I was brave? 


I haven't done it all in one day. But I have done a little of this work every day. I began with renting a room. I've always lived with my family or a boyfriend, or I have lived in hotels and paid for apartments through dancing contracts. I faced the fear of not being able to cope financially on my own, and rented a small but perfect room in Oxford. Step 1, check.


Then I started to tackle a few more, and a few more. Day by day.


On one hot summer day, I forced myself to swim in an open lake while there with a friend of mine. Small feat, perhaps. But my beating heart confirmed the actuality of it, as I sat happily on the lake's edge afterwards. 


As I moved through the journey it didn't become easier to face each fear. But it did become distinctly more familiar. I got used to the discomfort that washed over me as I applied for a job I thought was too good for me, or I stood up for my beliefs in a busy bar with someone who was getting away prejudice because of social expectation not to cause a fuss. 


These are my daily challenges. Embracing change, rather than running away. Happily going on dates, with a strong belief in better. Standing up for what I believe is right, even if it risks unpopularity. Swimming in open waters, no matter what waves arrive to me.


I am not intrinsically brave. I have been weak minded in the past. I've run away. I've chased my shadows. I've made mistakes. But I live now in a way that pushes growth in my own life and others. I take deep breaths, pep talk myself in bathroom mirrors before auditions, climb aerial equipment to dizzying heights, fling myself without a detail of elegance into a lake on a hot day, and just get on with the swimming part of the thing. Sometimes I fly. Sometimes I fall. But mostly, I am so, so happy to be swimming.


I challenge you, reader. Do something in the next thirty minutes that you would usually avoid. Perhaps say hello to someone as you pass them by. Or book a class you think you aren't good enough to go to, for whatever reason. Book a skydive, ask someone on a date. Whatever it is that makes you feel a little bit sick with fear yet quietly suspicious that perhaps something wonderful may come of it.


The floor is yours.


H E L E N  V I C T O R I A  

#liberté

Dedicated to the limitless supporters of this daily journey, without whom none of which would be possible.