I have always struggled with loving my art and finding love itself. A great quote from Lady Gaga describes my thoughts on the subject, "Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."
For me that concept rings so true, but at the same time I strongly believe in the romantic concept of love, that you'll always be there for each other regardless. So you can understand how torn I am. I don't want to compromise my dream/career for love, but I don't want to live a life alone. Which brings me to the woes of dating as a dancer (or any performer really).
In high school, I never went on dates because I spent 5 nights a week at the studio (mon-fri) and weekends if I wasn't rehearsing for the Nutcracker, dance competitions, actually at dance competitions...I was at home relaxing or attempting to have a social life by hanging with friends. My first date was in college as a Freshman...I didn't know it was a date until I got to the movies, so yeah. Then I lost my virginity to a friend later that year. Still no boyfriend. My life was filled with classes, homework, and rehearsals. Junior year of college I got to experience a friends with benefits situation, interesting to say the least, and of course senior year I was "seeing" someone for the majority of it. First proper date was with that person and by then we'd already slept together...and to be honest, I was never nervous on our dates cause we both knew each other so well and we knew how the night was gonna end. And after that relationship ended, I went on my first date with someone I didn't know. Had the second date and chose to never see him again. And then arrives the present time and the new guy. First date with him was comfortable, but then again the texting almost every day for month before it probably helped. And still no boyfriend...which, at the age of 22, doesn't really upset as much as it did when I was 16. However, I must admit that I figured by now I would have at least had one or two under my belt. Ehh, whatever.
My problem with this whole dating thing though is the explaining I'm a dancer part. I remember when I was talking to the first guy after the ex, let's call him Rob (I never really found out if his online handle was indeed his name). I met him through this free dating site I'm on and I remember quite clearly one of the conversations we had on there...
Rob: "So what did you do in college?" (btw says it on my profile)
Me: "I majored in dance. So I spent a lot of time in rehearsals and performing and stuff."
Rob: "When you say dance, please tell me you don't mean a stripper."
What the fuck? Really? Can you fucking MAJOR in stripping at a college? You know what, I don't think you can. But he wasn't the only guy on that site that thought that...and then most of the other guys just assumed I was ballerina. I've realized that almost all men I will date post grad will not understand what it is to date a dancer until we are months into the relationship. They're not like my ex who dated three dancers at my college or my fuck buddy who was friends/slept with a lot of dancers. They understood rehearsals will always run late, that I be exhausted after taking dance classes, I have to travel to auditions, I will break down crying from being rejected at an audition or having a bad class, every ache and pain in the body is a possible career ender, sweat pants are my every day wear when I'm dancing, I will listen to a song on repeat for hours. They just understood things like that and these new guys don't, which I understand will take time, but...ugh.
So I went a date with this new guy and he loves that I'm a dancer and is always asking me how rehearsals are going. It's nice to have someone remember when I'm rehearsing and teaching. And then there's this other guy, who texts me at the worst times to ask to hang out...always when I'm teaching or rehearsing and then making little jokes about me teaching him "how to dougie" or am I lying about having rehearsal...Fuck you. He makes me so mad that sometimes that I don't even want to go on a fucking date with him...
Sometimes I feel like it would be a less frustrating life to just not date, to be alone and suffer through the heartbreak, woes, and betrayals of love. And then I realize how much of an empty life that would be. I don't like having to explain why I am so developmentally behind in my love life because when I was "supposed to be" enjoying my youth and experiementing, I was in a studio dancing. I don't want to have to explain that I'd rather spend my birthday in NYC taking classes all day or that what I want for Christmas is a new leotard. I spent so much of the beginning of college trying to detach myself from being a dancer and doing other things, because I didn't want to be that dancer with her room decorated with pictures of otther dancers...I still don't. I am so much more than a dancer but I am also a dancer. I'm not like some of my friends that can just bounce from a guy to guy and have a feeling I will never be that girl...
Friday, October 28, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
DIY Challenge: Entry One
So amongst teaching children the careful art of dance, testing out a new boy via text messages and a first date, rehearsing with my crew twice a week in Boston, and the every day things I find to occupy myself like laundry....I have decided to take on the task of redoing my room. Which in all honesty I started about a week after I moved home from Dean, however with the most definite ever failing of the economy, my dream to move to New York will have to be put on the back burner for at least a year or two more. And most days I'm leaning towards two or more. My students loans right now, stand to be about $500 a month...add on top of that the money I have to pay to pay off my credit card ($1793 and some change from my six weeks in NYC 2 years ago), my cell phone bill, and whatever else life wants to pop up for me...Money is dictating me to stay at home and save a little bit longer.
So with the plan of paying off my credit card in 8/9 months and the need of a challenge pulsing through my veins...I've decided to try and redo my room for under $500, not including the flat screen tv and the new bed I want. Okay, challenge accepted. DIY heaven here I come.
I've started my adventure on shopgoodwill.com and just started searching the site...low and behold I found an awesome mirror, which in 6 days I'm hoping will be mine. It's gonna cost me $20 in shipping, but if I get the mirror for under my max bid, I'll be excited. I'm planning on a fresh coat of paint on the frame will give it a new life. It's coming from Shreveport, LA and little part of me is also excited to own something that's from a place that's close to the fictional town of Bon Temps. Ah I'm such a geek. I'm hoping my mother doesn't have a freak out when she finds out (if I win it) and may want to use it in our upstairs bathroom that we're currently redoing. If not, in my room it goes.
So with the plan of paying off my credit card in 8/9 months and the need of a challenge pulsing through my veins...I've decided to try and redo my room for under $500, not including the flat screen tv and the new bed I want. Okay, challenge accepted. DIY heaven here I come.
I've started my adventure on shopgoodwill.com and just started searching the site...low and behold I found an awesome mirror, which in 6 days I'm hoping will be mine. It's gonna cost me $20 in shipping, but if I get the mirror for under my max bid, I'll be excited. I'm planning on a fresh coat of paint on the frame will give it a new life. It's coming from Shreveport, LA and little part of me is also excited to own something that's from a place that's close to the fictional town of Bon Temps. Ah I'm such a geek. I'm hoping my mother doesn't have a freak out when she finds out (if I win it) and may want to use it in our upstairs bathroom that we're currently redoing. If not, in my room it goes.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Missing Piece of Me
So I wrote this last week on my iPhone, I know, but am now just getting around to posting. Sorry I've been so MIA, promise I'll post something that makes up for it, soon.
I find myself at night laying in bed with my arms out stretched like I'm reaching for something that isn't there anymore. And it feels like there's a part of me missing. And I hate that I feel that way. 'It was only I year' I tell myself. It's been three months, just fucking get over it. And then I think of what it is that I think I'm missing. The feel of his warm skin under my cool one? His deep breathes in the silent night? The feeling that when I wake up I know it'll be to his smiling face?
And so then I think of the time passed with him. The nights we'd lay in bed and I couldn't help but doubt that I wasn't the only one that laid in his arms, about what other girls he was possibly talking to. But then I'd take a deep breath and think, 'this isn't me. I trust him, it's just gotta be the nature of our arrangement.' it was true, part of me was always searching for the one thing that allowed him to be mine...a title, an idea, a concept. I knew what I wanted, I just didn't have it at the time. So I continued with my life, school work and rehearsals, all the while trying to map out my future and trying to figure out where he fit in. So I checked his state for dance companies to see if I could make my dream plausible for us. It wouldn't be any easier then Boston, but there was at least a dance scene. But I had to be rational, it's not like we were dating and although I loved him and only ever wanted that feeling returned, I knew it was crazy to think this way. So I buried those thoughts deep inside like a dark secret, its not like he was suddenly going to love me one day . And then that day came and like the glittering flame of a birthday candle, it was there one second and gone the next. His love. The tiny amount of claim that I held over him.
So I lay in bed, what? Missing...him? Is that why my arms are stretched out? No, I don't think it is. For, though it's taken me almost three months to understand, I don't miss that person that decided on a whim one day to finally utter the words I'd desperately waited a year for them to say. The words that were the response to the words of my tattoo, written in a language he knew how to speak. It was always there in front of him, the thing that I so ardently needed. And for the moment to come and just fizzle out? I use to think it was that, that scared him away and into the arms of another woman. So I'd blame myself, I mean I'd hurt him so bad in the past, why wouldn't it surprise me that the moment he finally admitted his true feelings for me, that he'd run as fast and far away as he could from the one person who could and had hurt him.
So again I ask myself why is it then that I'm not missing him?...to be honest I miss the man he was in the late hours of the night when we'd lay in bed together. There's no mask, no hiding who are, when you're in that moment. So if not him I miss then what? That honest moment? That's what I miss. The ability to have that moment when you're laying in bed, and you can't hide who you are anymore. You muscles relax until your bones sink into your mattress and your mind travels through all the ideas, memories, and feelings that you refused to face during the day. The moment when you can just cry knowing that the other person isnt going anywhere. The moment when you can just stare into a person's soul. The moment when there's no need for words and a simple quiver of your lip or wrinkle of your brow tells the person you're laying next to what exactly is on your mind.
So I lay with my arms outstretched, to remind myself that there was a time when those honest moments truly existed and when my hands finally touch something, those moments will be back.
Someday.
I find myself at night laying in bed with my arms out stretched like I'm reaching for something that isn't there anymore. And it feels like there's a part of me missing. And I hate that I feel that way. 'It was only I year' I tell myself. It's been three months, just fucking get over it. And then I think of what it is that I think I'm missing. The feel of his warm skin under my cool one? His deep breathes in the silent night? The feeling that when I wake up I know it'll be to his smiling face?
And so then I think of the time passed with him. The nights we'd lay in bed and I couldn't help but doubt that I wasn't the only one that laid in his arms, about what other girls he was possibly talking to. But then I'd take a deep breath and think, 'this isn't me. I trust him, it's just gotta be the nature of our arrangement.' it was true, part of me was always searching for the one thing that allowed him to be mine...a title, an idea, a concept. I knew what I wanted, I just didn't have it at the time. So I continued with my life, school work and rehearsals, all the while trying to map out my future and trying to figure out where he fit in. So I checked his state for dance companies to see if I could make my dream plausible for us. It wouldn't be any easier then Boston, but there was at least a dance scene. But I had to be rational, it's not like we were dating and although I loved him and only ever wanted that feeling returned, I knew it was crazy to think this way. So I buried those thoughts deep inside like a dark secret, its not like he was suddenly going to love me one day . And then that day came and like the glittering flame of a birthday candle, it was there one second and gone the next. His love. The tiny amount of claim that I held over him.
So I lay in bed, what? Missing...him? Is that why my arms are stretched out? No, I don't think it is. For, though it's taken me almost three months to understand, I don't miss that person that decided on a whim one day to finally utter the words I'd desperately waited a year for them to say. The words that were the response to the words of my tattoo, written in a language he knew how to speak. It was always there in front of him, the thing that I so ardently needed. And for the moment to come and just fizzle out? I use to think it was that, that scared him away and into the arms of another woman. So I'd blame myself, I mean I'd hurt him so bad in the past, why wouldn't it surprise me that the moment he finally admitted his true feelings for me, that he'd run as fast and far away as he could from the one person who could and had hurt him.
So again I ask myself why is it then that I'm not missing him?...to be honest I miss the man he was in the late hours of the night when we'd lay in bed together. There's no mask, no hiding who are, when you're in that moment. So if not him I miss then what? That honest moment? That's what I miss. The ability to have that moment when you're laying in bed, and you can't hide who you are anymore. You muscles relax until your bones sink into your mattress and your mind travels through all the ideas, memories, and feelings that you refused to face during the day. The moment when you can just cry knowing that the other person isnt going anywhere. The moment when you can just stare into a person's soul. The moment when there's no need for words and a simple quiver of your lip or wrinkle of your brow tells the person you're laying next to what exactly is on your mind.
So I lay with my arms outstretched, to remind myself that there was a time when those honest moments truly existed and when my hands finally touch something, those moments will be back.
Someday.
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