Friday, October 28, 2011

Dating as a Dancer

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...


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.

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.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Declaration of Independence

This post is my declaration of independence.
(Minus the paragraph after this that summarizes the days that I have forgotten to write about)

I have neglected writing to not only to save myself from writing everything down after the exciting days when I was tired, but from the boring days when there was nothing to write. In the time that has passed that has now brought September to my doorstep, it has also brought me new memories, experiences, and hopes for the future. I had the privilege of performing in Martha's Vineyard with some of my fellow Dean dancers doing Hip Hop Company for Kelly Peters. While there I met, some amazing dancers and was inspired by their passion for dance. Even the company of my fellow Dean dancers inspired me and made me realize how much I'd miss not being at school with them this fall. I journeyed to CT that weekend for my friend's birthday party. It was nice to have the group of us reunited once again, even if a few of us weren't there. I must admit it was a little awkward seeing my ex there, seeing as every graduation/BBQ party I went to last year, we were either a) together, b) slept together or c) he took me home. So going to this party I knew I'd feel slightly out of place due to the only history I had of going to these events was in the concept of a "couple"...and of course I feared his girlfriend would be there. I am thankful she was not. And it's not because I hate her, I just want to ease into being single around our friends and watching them kiss and feel each other up would probably, not only have broken my heart just a little again, but would have made me feel so unwanted. I haven't always felt secure within this group of friends because at school I was there fellow dancer and then the others I met and became better friends because I was seeing him. So imagine my dismay, always wondering if because the relationship is over if their friendships had shifted sides. A pointless worry I have been assured, since they are all still quite happy to know me and be my friend. Then the hurricane came and my nerves were at the ends, due to worry. My father insisted on doing things outside still, and I always worry about him. The days in between these events was spent with laying around in bed watching TV, or reading, or crafting. Dull things to just pass the time and not really blog worthy. Yesterday Alex had an end of the summer pool party with some of our Dean classmates coming since they've already been at school rehearsing. Last night we went to Dean to continue the party. I saw my old condo, which one of friends is living in. And of course per Dean the drama broke out at the party, not surprising. And every since that moment I have been thinking and thinking.

(this would be the declaration....)

I am certainly not the person I used to be this time last year. I have come to acknowledge there are certain matters I am quite firm on. Certain principles if you will.

I do not think you have to drink to have fun at a party. My body is a temple and I will not abuse it with drugs. I believe everyone deserves love. I do not believe anyone has the right to dictate the way my heart feels for another. I do not think you can call yourself an adult, when you turn to childish maneuvers in an adult situation. We are all traveling on our own course and if you can not accept another's course then you should not stand in their way. No one on earth is perfect and holding a person up to perfection is an insult to both them and yourself.  If you cease to continue to learn, then you are doing yourself a great disservice. You can not reasonably ever know what a person has been through, so judging purely by your own morals, ethics, and mannerisms will leave you with an unfinished picture of the person if you do not take into account their upbringing. The pains of the past have a place in our future. People who do not and can not stand by you when you are at your lowest, do not deserve to stand by you at your highest. Everyone makes mistakes and while some mistakes are bigger than others, all mistakes are learning experiences. A person must stand by the principles which they think to be true and right, even if others may think they are wrong. By everything that you define yourself by there will be an opposite truth. For every time you stand your ground, you will wonder if the choice you made was right. Every person on this earth is a hypocrite at one time or another, it just makes a difference on which subjects you choice to change your mind on.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

It has been a strange week.

Oh, it has been strange. The last 7 days that is. Let's start off with last tuesday...I went to the doctor for a check up of my HPV. Everything seems fine, but I don't think the test results have come in yet. They said they'd call if I need treatment or to come in. No call yet. Then I went to teach the summer hip hop class I'd been teaching and taught my first modern class that night. Wednesday....for the life of me it's escaping me what I did. Hmm. Thursday I had an interview with this awesome dance studio, that unfortunately the only day they are looking for is a day I'm already teaching. So, boo, but they let me teach 2 master classes tonight. Friday I ran errands and then spent a good portion of the day with Alex and some other friends from my school. It was nice to just hang out, laugh, crack jokes. I've missed some of these people. Then I rehearsed Saturday and Sunday for a piece I'll be performing in Martha's Vineyard Thursday and Friday this week. President Obama will be on the island then, I kinda hope I see him! But the piece is part of the hip hop piece I did for the last dance show at Dean choreographed by Kelly Peters. Yesterday [Monday] I spent ALL day looking up DIY/crafting things and attempting a few. I can't wait to post pictures when I'm completely done with a few of them. Then today, I taught the 2 master classes. I can't describe with words the joy that I get from watching students doing my choreography. I can't imagine doing anything else with my life outside of some form of choreographing.

So how could this week have been strange you may ask? I've been happy and feeling complete. I will admit I might have cried like 3 times this week, I'm a girl in my defence. But being just me, dancing.teaching, not worrying about certain people, and being single. I haven't been on a third date with the guy from before...yet. He wants to hang out, he's texted me twice this week about it. I just don't understand how a week ago I told him I'd be busy for the next three weekends and he didn't even ask a single question about what I was doing...Something about him just seems off to me. How could you really want to spend time with me, when you don't really know much about me? I assume he finds me attractive and thats the driving force behind he's need to see me. I cannot and will not be in another relationship where I am used for my body when I don't have a real connection with a person. It worries me that I have no desire to actually hang out with him, I thought at first it was me clinging to my ex....ehh no he just doesn't interest me. He has no interests. In the 6-8 hours I've spent with him, I haven't heard him talk about one thing at all that seems to interest him. Wtf. Even my ex had interests, fuck Scott had interests...how can he not? The only thing I can say he does like is the beach, and that is a place...c'mon really?

In a complete side note my ex facebook chatted me tonight. I was actuall suprised to see the chat window popped up, it felt like I had my best friend back for a little bit. He told me about the new things in his life, not too much stuff. He asked if anything exciting was going on in mine, I said performing in Martha's Vineyard...and that's all we really talked about in regards to me. There are so many things I want to talk to him about that are happening in my life, discuss politics with him. Sadly I conversation was too short for me. I'm supposed to be going to a party for his best friend [my freind too] this weekend...I'm sure I'll see him there, but I'm sure he'll probably bring his girlfriend though too. I don't know if I can really have an honest conversation with him, if she's gonna be attached to his side the entire time. I want my best friend back. I want to be able to talk politics. I want to be able to talk about things going on with my life, that he understood so well. I want to be challenged in a conversation as I was only with him. I miss my best friend, I get over not being his lover anymore, I can't lose my best friend...It seems I've lost or are losing other people in my life as it is...

And I guess the thing that makes this week the strangest is, that besides the fact that I felt happy and whole, I've been having a really hard time sleeping at night. I just run over and over things in my mind. Its starting to worry me. There's so much going on in my head and I'm not saying a lot of it because it family worries, money worries, life worries. Its not all worries, some of it is me planning out combos for class or wondering what the party this weekend will be like. I just want to be able to sleep through the whole night. I can't remember a night within the last 7 days that I've fallen sleep and stayed asleep. Maybe tonight I'll be able to.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Just blah.

I haven't felt very grounded since my last post, except when I was taking my hikes in the woods by these large lakes near my house. My life is at the moment a little uneasy with tensions between a few my friends and me, family issues arising, setbacks in meeting my goals in order to move to New York City within the year, and soul searching questions that have made me question what I really want. I must confess for the amount I am an honest and open on this blog, I am also vague and guarded. There are a handful of things in my life that I haven't written about in its entirity or at all due to my unease with the subjects, but I'm reaching the point where it seems the more I just try to keep things to myself and shutout everyone from these things, the more upset some people get with me. My blog has never been written for anyone other than me, so it has never been my intention to upset people with my posts, but I feel I must stand my ground on certain matters...such as, if I wish to vaguely write about something on this blog, but do not talk about it in person, there's a good reason. I probably don't have the courage to actually form the words to speak, unlike the ease that comes with writing them. Also anyone who's known me offline for long enough know that the summers between school, including high school, has been a time for me when I tend to shut everyone out in order to have me time...however this year due to the semi permanment nature of this summer stretching into the rest of my life, I have hung out with people that are close by to fight off the loneliness from moving back into my house, my uneasy break up with my ex, and the questioning that I assume that comes with finishing college and moving onto the next step. I am my own person and process and deal with things in different ways then others, I'm not going to keep apologizing for being me. If anyone even cares why I truely haven't been talking to lot of people here are the reasons: I didn't want to talk about my break up and how it made me feel to certain people, to be honest I think I've really only talked to like 2 people about it. Also, I've been spending an insane amount of time with Alex, since due to her horrible car accident cannot leave the house and she lives only ten minutes from me. Her house not only doesn't get good cell service, but due to her being crippled, as she says, and the amount of people that come to visit her in waves, my attention is consumed for hours by her and/or her vistors. Then when I'm not teaching or at Alex's...I'm in my room working on some projects, dealing with problems, or actually attempting to get out of the house and have a good time. I spend enough with Alex and dealing with family shit, that it could be a full time job...and yet I don't complain about any of it, because that's not who I am. I love spending time with Alex and the family stuff is so up and down that its hard to decribe my feelings about it. In regards to the family stuff...I have a sick/possibly dying family member; worries about my father being laid off come fall/winter due to no work with his company; my brother getting his licsence back, so that come sept I don't have him to drive to and from work every day so that I can actually get a day job; things in the house breaking, like the well and how we didn't have water for a full week; my own health issues; my father's health, since his job pays most of the bills; my parents getting a divorce, since my mom has told me she's threatened my dad with it if he doesn't do some things around the house, which makes me hope that she's joking, but still I worry; my extended family's continued silence to not only my family but the rest of dad's side; the health of my aunt; paying back student loans...There's a lot of shit of my own to deal with, on top of being upset about the break up; dealing with the fact that my best friend is now my ex and therefor makes our relationship more complicated; seeing all the shit that Alex's is going through and wondering how can I complain when I'm able to walk, drive and leave the house... So sorry if I don't feel like talking about everything and all of this to people.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

A moment of clarity.

I've wanted to write the past couple days, but I haven't felt comfortable actually writing any of it down. I'm still not a hundred percent comfortable so this post will not only be both vague, but confusing. I've been going through my days in a fashion that can only be described as drifting. I went on the second date that guy, the beach. It went well, seeing as he kissed me before I left. Well actually, made out with me in his driveway is more like it. I find myself lost when it comes to him. He's cute, nice and I'm comfortable with him...and that's all I'll say about him in this post, because I don't want a written record of how I'm exactly feeling about him.

My world seems to be a mix of doubt, mistrust, hurt, abandonment, confusion, and hope. My mood changes at such drastic speed that it scares me. I'm fully functioning and content and then I want to slam my fist into the wall or I day dream about hurting someone...and I have come up with many different scenarios. I'm not a violent person, but my day dreams just ends with me beating my frustration out on this person. Then when its not my anger fighting to get out, I just get this washing feeling of sadness. I used to think that the sadness was just over my Ex choosing to be with someone else over me...then I slowly began to realize that I felt lied to, deceived and used. I've been doubting almost every experience I had with him over our year together. Was it really just sex? Was every time he told me it wasn't about sex, a lie? I don't want to talk to him, at all about our past...there's no point, it's in the past. I'm trying hard to find my answers and be happy with myself....and feeling lost along the way.

I've never been much a religious person, I just agreed with the religion forced upon me, but I did something last night that I haven't done in a very long time...I prayed. I know in an earlier post I said I would explain my "God and Goddess" comment, well...even though I was raised Catholic, I prefer to practise Wicca. I don't fully identify as a practitioner because it's been years since I've practised. I was heavily into it during middle school and the beginning of high school before the rest of my life became my focus. So last night when I prayed, I casted a circle (lit candles around me), I wrote two Rune symbols on my arm meaning healing, and asked the Goddess for help. I asked her to make me whole, to heal me from the inside out, to take away the darkness inside my heart. I asked her to heal my body and my heart. I asked her to take away my disease, my anger, and my hate for him. I cried and cried so hard while begging to be made whole again. I also begged her to forgive me. I felt so drained after I closed the circle and refreshed that I think I'm going to pray again tonight. And I realize my pagan ways may have some people looking at me completely different, but I'm done hiding it...I believe in the power of nature and the female and male energies of the universe. The concept of a fire place beneath me and a cloudy kingdom above me is to me more fantastical then praying to a male and female energy that controls the world....

And I'm not gonna really keep talking about my religious views cause this post was just to get some of my worries/thoughts off my mind. The date of my next doctor's appointment looms ahead in the future, 3 weeks. I still haven't come to terms with my HPV and I know that it's the root of my anger and hurt when it comes to my Ex. It feels like he forgot about me in regards to this, that I'm all alone in this. I worry how things could progress and if things didn't go well, how he'd be too busy loving and caring for his new girlfriend to even care about the problems he left me with...and I feel strange bringing a new person into this mess. I'm feeling very lost and hoping that praying will bringing me some guidance.