The question
As a child, what career or life did you imagine for yourself?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
This is a standing question in The Guardian's decades-long The Q&A and also recurs independently in career and life interviews.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
United States professional tennis player, 1995–2022
A veterinarian.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 January 2021 source ↗
A ballet dancer. I danced from age two to 19. Giving up was not a choice; I had complications in an ankle operation.
First something medical, then, without any doubt, an artist.
An actor – that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. I went to stage school when I was 13.
A great composer. I wrote to Benjamin Britten to tell him this and that he was my third favourite composer. For some reason he didn’t feel moved to reply.
Like you can do anything.
I wouldn’t change anything about myself. If you asked me 20 years ago, I probably would have had a long list. But I’ve learned to appreciate and love who I am.
Any lost match is, of course, disappointing, but every loss is a lesson to be learned.
I don’t think about my greatest fear.
I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn't feel like a modern word to me. I've been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I'm up to is evolution. I'm here to tell you that I'm evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.
Oh, I am not thinking about that yet.
Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Johanna Konta, Yogi Berra, Chris Bonington, Kevin Pietersen
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