'What do you want to be when you grow up?' is a question that filled me with a cold, quiet, stomach churning dread as a child. Especially when it was asked in front of my mother. It didn’t matter what I answered – ballerina, doctor, police officer, comic book artist, website designer – because she would snort and then sneer in her Yorkshire accent,
'She’s a dreamer. She’s not good enough, and I keep telling her just to get a job in an office when she grows up.'
I kept my dreams of eventually becoming a historian and writer wrapped carefully, close to my chest. When I told her that I wanted to go to university one day, she turned her nose up at that too. She told me that university wasn’t meant for working class people like me. As cliché as it sounds, a child’s mind is like fertile soil and my mother planted a seed of doubt into mine. It grew and flowered into a fully-fledged voice at the back of my mind, letting me know how stupid I was, how I wasn’t good enough, whenever my mother wasn’t around to tell me herself.
I finished sixth year and got a job in a shop, waving my friends off to university and gap years. I was happy for them, but I still felt every inch the failure in comparison. I had been discouraged from even applying to university by my teachers because my grades weren’t great in my last year. That only served to confirm everything my mother and the voice at the back of my head told me. You’re not good enough, so why even bother?
I was afraid. Afraid of getting it wrong. Afraid of feeling like a failure. Afraid to take a chance. Every time something in my life went wrong, whether it was my fault or not, I still jumped to that same thought of not being good enough. My dreams of becoming a historian and writer were no longer wrapped up carefully, but left gathering dust. I’d try out new things but if I wasn’t perfect immediately, it wouldn’t last long. I still have an unfinished needle felting kit somewhere and a ridiculous gouache painting of Anne Boleyn stuffed at the back of a wardrobe. You will never amount to anything, you’re just not good enough.
Last year, after lockdown, I went for a long walk with one of my pals. The idea was to try and get fit after sitting around doing very little for months. We’ve been friends for a few years, and I’ve learned that he’s the sort of friend that will ask you the difficult questions about yourself and really make you think. He probably should have been a therapist or one of those motivational speakers.
We’d been walking for a few miles before the conversation swung round to that dreaded question,
'So, what did you want to be when you grew up?'
I told him about having wanted to be a historian and writer, and then the next question came,
'Why didn’t you become one?'
I told him I would need to go to university for that and then he asked why I hadn’t gone.
'Didn’t have the grades at the time,' I replied.
'But you could go to university now as an adult learner, and you don’t need the grades.'
'True, but I work full time.'
'Yeah, but you could study full time or do a part time course. Do you still want to be a historian and writer?'
'Well, yeah.'
'Then go to university if that’s what you need to do! Why are you trying to make excuses not to go?'
That was when it all finally came tumbling out – the fear of trying, losing heart at the first stumble, flailing and failing. I told him everything, about what my mother used to say to me, about that voice in the back of my head. I won’t repeat what he had to say about my mother’s opinions because I’m not sure that could be printed.
He told me that I could do it if I stopped letting the fear hold me back. If I never tried at all, that would be worse than trying and getting it wrong. It was human nature to mess up and nobody could ever be perfect at everything all the time. He told me his regrets about not doing all the things he wanted to do when he was younger and that he didn’t want me to end up in the same boat. He stopped to apologise a few times for ranting at me as we walked together in the middle of nowhere, but the message stayed in my head anyway. You can do it. I believe in you.
I applied for university. My pal gave me the push I’d sorely needed to face my fears. I’m closing in on the end of my first year now. Every assignment I’ve written feels like a victory against the tiny, Yorkshire-accented whisper in the back of my head. Every result feels worthy of celebrating friendship over fear. I can do it. I believe in myself. Thank you.