As someone who has found joy in solo explorations; holidays, dinners, the theatre, cinema trips and concerts, it was interesting to realise that the ballet was one place I had some apprehension about attending.
My source of discomfort stemmed from these ideas about the ballet as a foreboding place that I would need comrades to enter with. But, a solitary ticket to a long sold out Ballet Black performance, popping up during a random browse of the tab I had forgotten to close down, had me rushing to check out long before I could explore these fears.
It was only after the payment had been made and the alert popped up on my phone that panic set in. Questions ranging from ‘what does one wear to the ballet?’ to ‘do you even have the intellect to understand ballet?’ saw me oscillating between sweat and excitement for a day that would coincide with the end of my first week at a new job.
This was meant to be and regardless of the reality of my fears, I was going to go.