Claire, the fire engine.

I remember being a child, maybe 4 or 5? In the middle of ‘careers day’ at school, learning about careers and life paths in a way our little, naive ways. I remember the teacher asking us

“What do you want to be when you grown up?”

…a popstar

..a footballer

… a Mum

.. a dancer

Me? I wanted to be a fire engine. I did not get this confused with the heroic firefighters. I wanted to be the truck itself.

I remember proudly announcing to my class only to be interrupted with the roaring laughter of my school friends and my teacher. My teacher. A grown adult laughing in the face of a innocent child. I remember the feeling of my tears pricking at my eyes whilst my face glowed with shame. That was the first time in my life I felt different. I felt stupid.

I remember coming home that night and running into my safety shelter which was my Mother’s arms. Sobbing into her arms I told of my embarrassment and that I had said something wrong. She did nothing but hold me.

The next morning, I woke up to my Mother knocking on my bedroom door softly. When she entered my room she presented a cardboard box, brightly painted red. Pipe cleanings painted silver were twisted with precision to form a ladder resting on top of the box. She placed it over my head and helped my pull my arms through the holes she’d cut out of the sides. She sat down and looked at me in the eyes, sensing the confusion in my mind she spoke..

“My darling. You can be whatever you want to be. People are afraid of the things that don’t fit in their “normal” but that’s okay too. You’ll be a fire engine because to me, you already are”

She doesn’t realise how much that conversation changed my life.

Please don’t ever allow our children to feel like I did. We can do and do anything we wish.

I’m 28 and I’m a mother fucking fire engine.

What do you wanna be when you grow up?