Dropping In

Donned in bright red lipstick and blue eye shadow, a pin-tucked French braid, and sequined outfits that would sparkle under the lights I entered the stage with all the other little girls in perfect unison. We danced the same moves in tandem, putting on a choreographed show for the masses. I did this for years, from the age of three to the age of fifteen, not fully understanding these events. To me it was playing dress up. It was Saturday morning dancing with friends. As I got older it started to feel superficial. I was performing the moves, but no longer with that same childlike enjoyment. It wasn’t fun anymore. And with all the criticism that comes with aspiring to be a professional ballerina, I gave it all up.

This was the first time I can remember giving up on my dreams. I did it quietly, for years keeping the reasoning to myself, not wanting others to think certain things about me. The truth is that I was terrified that I had ruined the trajectory of my life. I thought that me falling out of love with dance meant that I was a failure, that it meant this life path that I wanted so badly wasn’t meant for me. That’s a lot of heaviness for a fifteen year old girl to carry around, a weight that I have only recently been able to set down.

It has taken me years to understand the fallacy of my thoughts, to understand that my love of dance had only faltered because I unconsciously wanted something different. It was the conformity that I wanted to get away from, the ideas of perfectionism and strict structure that was making me hate dance and where I saw myself fit into it.

It took me over twenty years to find something that relit that spark inside of me. It’s similar in that sense, the lightness I feel when I step into the studio, the willingness to learn how to create and move in these new ways. However it was a different set of shoes that I had to step into, donning clear Pleaser heels instead of baby pink pointe shoes. And an entirely different plane of existence, from the horizontal line of the ballet barre to the vertical line of the metal stripper pole.

I have been creating art through physical embodiment my whole life. I just didn’t realize it at the time. Art was always described as something permanent, something you could hang on your wall. I am starting to realize that art can be so much more, that it can be whatever you want it to be, and that it can last as long as you need it to.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

– Cesar A. Cruz

I have found that often we refuse to leave our habits and beliefs behind not because we don’t have that desire, but because it’s scary over there. We find comfort in our misery because we know it so well. Some point along the way I got tired of hiding, I got tired of wishing my life was better or merely different from what it was becoming. And boy was it terrifying! It was also the best decision I could have made for myself, for now I finally feel more like myself. And I kind of like her. In fact, I am starting to fall in love with her.

My love of dance never faded away, as it was always lingering there behind the curtain. I can see that now. On some level I regret putting that part of me aside for so long, and at the same time I know I cannot change the past nor the decisions that I have made. I can only accept them and move forward, which is exactly what I intend to do. You may just find me dancing along the way.

Mad love, Jenna