I was on my favourite addiction today, Facebook. I stumbled across an old schoolmate that had shared a moment of intimacy and fame with me all those 22 years ago. We were the lead dance artists and soloists in the school musical production of Oliver Twist, called “Smike”. I mean, where does one start in catching up with an old school friend after 22 years?
Here’s what transpired:
Him (anonymous):
What a (Very pleasant) blast from the past!
How are you?
And how could I forget that I got to shake a leg with the best looking girl in our year!
Stella Fairbum. Bloody hell.
I am MORTALLY in shock now!
X
Stella
Today at 3:53pm
Hahahah! Stella Fairbum. I’d forgotten about that! (I’ll add that we were mixed religion, co-ed in N.I, in case you hadn’t twigged)
Stella
Today at 9:45pm
I’m flattered, to say the least! Al Jazeera, eh? Must be an interesting slant on global affairs, one would think?
So, are you sitting comfortably in Madrid? Rather than give you the whole blurb, I’ll try a timeline, easier to follow I guess.
1986 – Left school with 3 meesley “O” levels, 2 english and art and went to jersey to follow music career and be a nanny to my record producer. I was always a creative being and sadly school and academia did not allow me to excel. Awful memory but great at new ideas, intuition and seeing them through to reality! Typical right brainer!
1988 – Moved to Harrogate, Yorkshire and worked for local paper (music career not doing much except for recording ad jingles, Jacob’s TRIO, Gillette etc)
1990 – Became the resident Jazz vocalist at the Ritz Hotel, Green Pk, London with a 21 piece orchestra called the Vile Bodies (Named after the Evelyn Waugh novel, who are all Oxford dons)
1991 – Joined Holliger Group plc, Telegraph plc for my sins in advertising and marketing – spare time making music and raving, performing and recording dance music!!!
1994 – Joined Bloomberg in the city, got really bored as I’m a creative person and jumped to work for Wired Magazine and had spinal surgery in between!
1996 – Joined Conde Nast magazines and migrated all their magazines online as project director.
1997 – Was headhunted to set up the UK and European divisions of DoubleClick and DART ad serving technologies as company director.
2000 – Bailed out with ALL my stock options and shares at the peak pre-dot.com crash and have been dossing around ever since! Well except for facing my dysfunctions, destructive patterns, family history and going into the core of my pain to heal it, a job in itself! (Not for the feignt-hearted)
2001 – got married….well married into the fantasy really and lived with my husband in L.A. California. We both knew after the honeymoon that it was over. But we stayed together for a while and became great friends. Post 9/11 we said “sod this” and moved to Mexico. I changed the economic future of a few villages with artisan crafts on eBay and teaching about the internet community and global community.
2003 – Got very ill in Mexico with salmonella, typhoid and dysentary, ALL at once! Was stuck on a drip for 8 days whislt I hallucinated food and recipes on a very large white wall. Had a very traumatic experience where I had an ectopic pregnancy and nearly died and came back to UK, the marriage dissolved and I rebuilt my life back in the UK.
2005 – met the father of my child, we dated for a bit, I was told I couldn’t conceive naturally in Mexico and needed IVF then and became pregnant naturally after doing the Hoffman Process, a mindblowing 8 days where you literally manifest your hearts desire. Mine was to have a baby. Sadly Rosie’s fathers hearts desire was not the same, so we parted company after she was born.
2006 – came back to Norn Iron (local dialect for Northern Ireland) to live near parents…..very supportive but very challenging, as you can imagine!
2007 – present, still in Norn Iron , so I am! And trying not to speak the local Bushmills dialect as my parents retired up here about 15 years ago from Holywood. Loving the support, peace, quiet, serenity of the north antrim coast and beaches and my little one is free to run around in fields, beaches, glens and giants causeway in fresh air and green fields as far as the eye can see. Taking time out now to review the last 20 years and deciding what my entrepreneurial spirit will do next. Probably something in the field of self-development and honouring new mothers in an age where they really don’t have the support they need. I just know you’ll have something to contribute to this!
In between all of that timeline blurb, I’ve been playing the guitar, singing, performing, songwriting and singing in the shower and coming into my own as a mother. I just don’t understand why I didn’t do it sooner?!
I looked through some of your pics today and they speak 300,000 words. It would seem that you are a dad, but not a biological one, as you said, but the bond is there right? Look forward to hearing your long story. I’m sure, somehow, that I’ll empathise.
So I’m taking time out now and giving my daughter a full time mama until she’s 2 and then I’ll get back to work and hopefully she’ll come too! Hope to write my own script and help others in the world with my zest for life, positivity, life experience and wisdom.
So do you think, if we met up, we could still do that jive we learnt all those years ago for Smike? I bet we could? Surely the neural pathways would have been burnt and it would be like riding a bike again? Mind you, I think the vats of red wine of days gone past might have destroyed a few of those pathways in between times!
So lovely to connect with you again. I must say I was so amazed to see my little face on those pics on the class of ‘88. The above diatribe is just scratching the surface. I hope to hear your story/timeline one day soon, especially about being a Dad. A dad is a dad whether biological or not. And I’m sure you are a great one!
Much love, laughter, happiness and good wishes for this year and the next and so on…..
Stella “*” (the only honest CV you’ll ever see in your lifetime!)
tbc…
