My River Journey
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Growing up in my family I had a father
who was a talented artist I remember
being mad with my second eldest
brother as I felt only he inherited my
dads’ artistic genes. He was always
winning colouring in competitions at the
local news agent and for school the
students would have a competition to
design the year book cover. My pictures
were never as good as his and I would
feel like I shouldn’t enter the
competition.
My primary school years were also
hard as the friends I made
happened to be very good at Art
as well as musically gifted. The
only thing I felt I was good at was
dancing but the school didn’t offer
any dance classes and nowhere
locally to learn.
Although I enjoyed performing I
was extremely self-conscious, shy,
anxious and nervous every time I
had to perform. Through my
school years I was bullied quite
badly and developed a fear of
people looking at me. I wanted to
be an actor in the school play, but
I was always to scared to ask to
play a part.
However, despite being quite
conscious of my artistic abilities I
still loved to draw, and I would
make up comic books about my
dog being a super hero. I also
loved colouring in books.
The good thing about having
friends who were musically gifted
is it made me want to be like
them. I thought it was amazing
that my best friend could play the
piano, so I asked my mum to get
me lessons. This led to me joining
the school band and developing
my music abilities. I also joined the
school choir and enjoyed going to
different towns and performing.
My love for music and drama
outgrew my fears at time. The
passion for performing was
exhilarating and once the nerves
settled I always enjoyed myself
especially doing dances in the
school plays. In my final year of
school, I put my hand up to be one
of the lead actors, all my teachers
and fellow community members
who watched the play said how
great I was and told me that don’t
know what I was worried about.