If I asked you, at 5 years old, "what do you want to be when you grow up?", what would your answer have been?

I guess mine would have been "Britney Spears".

But as far as I can remember (pretty much 5 years old), I didn't know what to answer.

Or, rather, I never dared to say it out loud. I clearly remember that I wanted to be an actress. But I was too afraid to put it out there.

Which is wild... what kind of conditioning did I already receive — at 5 years old!! — to make me so self-conscious? To make me think it was a ridiculous dream? To make me believe I could never, not me? Literally giving me imposter syndrome?!

My mom came to visit me recently. We spent a lot of time together, and we obviously talked about my life and career.

For context, I left my home town 5 years ago, travelled around the world and lived in Australia before coming back to Canada this year, in a city far from where I'm from. So my mom and I haven't seen each other in person a lot lately.

So we were talking about my life, and I started telling her about how I felt, as a kid. I confessed that I never felt comfortable enough to perform in front of them.

That I used to hide in the woods to sing, so that nobody would hear me, when we used to go to our vacation home.

She was surprised. And obviously sad at the thought that a child doesn't feel good enough to be herself in front of her parents.

Truth is, I was VERY sensitive. (I still am, but as an adult, I've learned to regulate). And I didn't want to be mocked.

Which is funny because I've never had trouble doing comedy. Comedy is easy: you take on a persona, you make jokes, and people laugh. It's fun. People don't really laugh at you. They laugh at the persona you created.

But when it's time to share your art, to share your real self... the last thing you need is someone mocking what you do. I guess that as a hypersensitive child (probably with some undiagnosed autism, if you want my opinion), it made everything worst.

So "I want to be a pop star" didn't exactly feel safe for me to express.

I still haven't said it out loud. I've said I want to make music. To dance. To sing. To build an audience. To perform on stage and tour.

But yesterday, someone said it for me.

After my songwriting lesson, I was chatting with the owner of the music school. I was telling him about my background, what I like, my goals and what I want to do, and he casually said "well maybe your next career path is pop star". And he was dead serious.

😳 Uh, excuse me sir?

But now it's sinking in. That it might not be as crazy as I thought. That I wasn't born with that much energy, creativity and passion for performing to be doing anything else.

And that maybe, MAYBE it does make sense. That no other career path, not one, has ever lightened me up as much. That I've felt so lost having to choose a degree in college while completely ignoring the idea of pursuing performing arts.

But I couldn't imagine myself being happier than performing on a big stage, singing, dancing and bringing up the energy levels of an entire crowd.

😮‍💨

It is true what they say; that you often circle back to what you were passionate about as a kid.

I hope that, if you haven't already, you reconnect with this passion of yours.

Until next week,

MP xx