I spent my weekend in New York City.

It wasn’t just any weekend. It wasn’t vacation. It wasn’t for fun. Well, maybe a little. I did have fun, but I was also very stressed out. As high school seniors, we invest most of our time in preparing for college and visits and tests and interviews. I, in addition, had to prepare for an audition. Yes, I want to go to college to study dance and earn a degree. This requires me traveling various locations and audition in order to be told whether or not I’m good enough to do that. So this is what I did this weekend.

My dad came with me, which was incredibly helpful since I could rant about my nerves and worries to someone. I was still a scared mess. I walked into the NYU building last Friday morning; every inch of me was shaking and I could barely talk. I kept laughing awkwardly at every single stupid thing my dad said. Just trying to think about something, anything else. Obviously it didn’t work. So we walked in the building and were told to take the elevator up the stairs. At this point I was paralyzed with fear, which wasn’t good especially when going into a dance audition. Yet, I was trying to seem totally cool because another fellow auditionee was in the elevator with me. The door slid open and I walked into a room packed with girls my age who were talking, stretching, just chilling before entering the audition.

My face became yellow and I just slowly approached a corner where I would attempt stretching. When, after what felt like an eternity, they called us into the studio we got to stretch another little bit. At this point my muscles were as stretched out as they’ll ever be and all I wanted to do was start class and get it over with. They introduced us to the dance faculty and then we began. We did a few exercises at the barre and then moved onto center. After the ballet portion of the audition, which I thought had gone fairly well, we moved onto contemporary, were catastrophe struck. I’ve only been doing contemporary for a year so you can understand I’m not the best at picking up choreography. So when the teacher, a lovely woman, threw us a whole combination for us to learn in five minutes, I completely lost it. My hart began pounding and my breathing was out of control. By the time it was my turn, I was soaked in sweat and I just tried to do my best though I could feel that it wouldn’t have been enough. I was right. After the contemporary portion of the audition they announced who had made it to the next part of the audition. I didn’t. I got cut. My heart shattered into million of pieces like a glass being dropped from a fifteen stories high building.

“They cut me,” I told my dad as I left the studio.

I was on the verge of tearing up. I turned around to get my stuff and started balling. I felt like nothing. Like everything I had worked for that far meant nothing. I’m not good, no college will accept me, I’m done. This is all that ran through my mind. I started panicking knowing the following day I had another audition and the weekend after another one. What will I do if I can’t dance? I was desperate.

Luckily my dad was there. He hugged me and told me that what they said to me didn’t matter, that just because they didn’t want to admit me didn’t mean anyone else won’t. He slowly started picking up all the broken pieces and glued them back together.

He was right, because two years later here I am, halfway through the first semester of sophomore year, in a school that I love, sorrounded by people I love and doing what I am meant to do.