Our experiences make us who we are. Whether good, bad or ugly, our experiences make us who we are. This fact is really exemplified in a song (I was honestly introduced to through Glee) called “At the Ballet.” It talks about how although everyone has different life experiences, ballet can bring them together.

I danced for 15 years (so basically the majority of my life). I loved dance. I competed for two years but took classes for much longer. I remember the escape dance gave me. I could go in the studio and dance my heart out, no matter what I was feeling. Whether I was having boy problems, or had made a bad grade on a test, or I had had the best day of my life, dance was always there.

I feel like the first thing most little girls want to be is a ballerina. At that age we don’t really understand how much sacrifice dance takes, all we know is it feels safe. You get to wear a pretty tutu and live out these beautiful fantasies where you are a swan princess or Clara. You get to see a completely different world that no dancers can’t see. Those childhood dreams slowly turn in to a reality. You begin to be able to smell the mixture of glitter and sweat from a mile away, and you begin to choreograph a dance routine to every top 40 song you here on the radio. Your mind begins to function in dance mode almost constantly. Then you realize how you transform as soon as you hit that stage. You get to see how you turn into a completely different person when you hit the stage, and nothing beats when you make the top ten at your competition. Dance slowly begins to consume you, and then it is over.

I miss dance. I miss my dance friends. I miss going to the studio and being a able to dance my feelings out. I miss the overdone make up and the way I felt when I nailed a routine. I even miss dancing through injuries and hitting the floor super hard when you try to nail that triple turn. Dance forever left a hole in my heart that nothing else can fill, but that's okay. I still have the memories and I still have contact with my friends. Sometimes we even get invited to come back and dance in recitals or nutcracker performances. I find myself tapping to music in department stores and seeing if I still have some of my flexibility left when I am stretching while cramming for exams. Dance will forever be a part of my life even though I am not living in the dance world anymore.

I am forever grateful for the memories dance gave me and for the lessons it taught me. I am forever grateful for the teachers who invested so many hours of their time to teach me and help me develop in to the person I am today. I am so grateful to my Mom for making sacrifices so I could dance, be that time or money. I thank my family and friends for cheering me on no matter how bad I was on stage that night (especially when I was dancing through injuries and falling out of all of my turns). I’m thankful for my dance teacher Ms. Leslie for teaching me to love tap (even though I always said I hated it). I am so thankful for my dance friends who loved me and supported me in the good, the bad, and the ugly (and for ordering the chocolate chip cookies with me at dance conventions). I am so blessed to have had the chance to dance, and I will always have my dancing shoes on and love in my heart.