LIFE LESSONS Shania Twain
She’s known as the queen of country pop and is one of the biggest-selling music stars of all time. Shania Twain shares the importance of romance, the joy of bringing up a teenager and why she once considered giving up singing
Love is a necessity, not a luxury. Everybody needs it. I’m a very loving person, though I’m not terribly romantic. But my husband is – he’s wonderful and I’m very lucky. If he wakes up before me in the morning, he’ll write me a love letter. He doesn’t cook at all, but he’ll display food in a heart, or go into the garden with a bowl of blueberries so he can decorate it with flowers.
I love the direct relationship you can have with a teenager. My son, Eja, is 15 now and very independent. I love the age he’s at – we talk about everything. We were always close, but as they mature, you can talk about more mature things with them.
There are lots of things worth fighting, but age isn’t one of them. I want to like what I see when I look in the mirror, and that means adapting in every regard – my exercise regime, my diet. Every day I get up and say, okay, maybe I don’t like the way I look in those jeans any more, I’m going to change the brand. I can change my haircut and its colour. It’s about letting go of the things that just aren’t working any more. You just have to move on. I know that ageing is out of my control, and I’m okay with that.
Looking after yourself is knowing what you can control and what you can’t. I couldn’t control contracting Lyme disease [which led to a vocal cord disorder], but I could control what I would do about it. It took years to build up the determination to tackle it. There were moments where I thought, is it worth it? Should I even sing any more? But now I have my new album, and I’m very happy. The positive side is that all those years I wasn’t working, I was raising my son at home, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. I was still productive all those years, I just wasn’t productive with my voice. I was writing and mothering.
I want to like what I see when I look in the mirror, and that means adapting in every regard