Think back to a time when you used to be involved in something you were passionate about, something you used to do on a daily or weekly basis. Does anything come to mind? For me, that was dance.
I started when I was three or four with basic tap and ballet lessons (although they weren’t even real lessons). From there I discovered that tap wasn’t for me so I transferred to a different school--one that was serious about ballet. Throughout elementary and middle school I attended classes three to four days a week, often taking more than one class each night. Because I did this I often missed out spending time with friends. They’d always ask me when I was free and I always told them, “I can’t. I have dance.” At the time I didn’t realize how much of my childhood was being consumed by this, but I was also doing something I loved, and I wasn’t going to give that up.
If you’ve ever been involved in extracurricular activities and dedicated your entire life to them, you know what I’m talking about. Hours upon hours spent driving to and from practice or rehearsal or whatever it may be, to hating to call out for being sick or injured. It’s a heart-wrenching pain, forcing you to experience unpleasant emotions you never want to replicate again. It’s almost like part of you dies. If you continue to do what you adore, then good for you. I’m jealous. Don’t take it for granted.
When I was in eighth grade and looking into high schools, it had been suggested that I check out the local performing arts high school. I wasn’t too sure about it since I didn’t think I was good enough to be accepted, and a normal public high school seemed crazy enough (I attended private school from kindergarten through eighth grade), but my parents pushed me into auditioning anyway and I found myself accepted.
Assuming most people (if any) who read this didn’t go to a performing arts high school I’ll break down what a typical day looked like. The school I attended had six majors: Visual Art, Theater, Dance, Ice Skating, Vocal Music, and Instrumental Music. For the first half of the day the underclassmen were in their academics, then everyone had lunch at the same time. Afterward, the freshmen and sophomores went to their respected majors until school let out. The schedule for the upperclassmen was flipped—arts in the morning, academics in the afternoon. This is what I knew for four years of my life. Each day I danced for three hours and had normal academic classes for three hours. Every evening I’d return home exhausted, but content, feeling like I did something worthwhile that day. Eat. Dance. Sleep. Repeat. All I knew for four years. Everything seemed to be going perfectly up until junior year. I was doing well in my classes, and even getting pretty good grades in modern (the genre I didn’t care for much). Then, at the beginning of junior year, I injured myself, tearing both ACL and meniscus, forcing me out for the rest of the year.
Again, if you’ve been out for an extended period of time due to an injury, you totally feel me right now--the humiliation, pain, ostracization from your peers. It’s not a good feeling. Thankfully, it got better my senior year, although I didn’t seem to be as well-liked by the people in my major or my dance teachers, but that doesn’t even matter now. As soon as senior year started, it ended. Where had my life gone for the past four years? In the midst of all this, I was trying to figure out colleges to apply to. I knew I wanted to go to a Christian college that had dance as a major, but there were only four or five schools in the United States that fit both of those requirements. Meanwhile, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to stick to that major. Being injured and ostracized from the people I spent so much time with forced me to change perspectives. It turns out I never really fit in with them anyway, and this chance to get away from them for a while was quite healthy. I ended up getting extremely close to the Visual Art majors and some of the Music majors (I had to triple major in order to keep my grades up in my dance classes). Due to this unfortunate event (or so I viewed it at the time), I really had no idea what I wanted to do in college. I really only chose that major because I knew it would make my dance teachers proud and seemed wasteful to go to an arts school for four years and not major in that art in college--almost like a waste of time, but I went for it anyway and that’s how I found out about Eastern University.
Fast forward and I’m in my first semester of college, which isn’t going too well. I haven’t danced in a few months so I’m incredibly sore for the first week of ballet classes and even after that my body still feels like it’s unable to handle everything it could in high school. Additionally, I keep making dumb freshman mistakes such as locking myself out of my room or going home every weekend rather than forcing myself to stay on campus and make friends. Furthermore, a death in the family during the beginning of the second semester didn’t help my transition into college. Overall, the first year kind of sucked. At the end of the first semester, after meditating on the choice for months, I decided to switch majors and go into English, a subject I had an incredible passion for since middle school. After officially becoming a Literature major during the second semester, I’ve only occasionally, and not seriously, regretted the decision. I know I made the right choice by going into this major, and even though I’m no longer in the dance program, I’m still involved. During sophomore and junior year, I was able to be in pieces for the spring and fall dance concerts, respectively, and this semester I’m involved in the senior concert happening the first weekend in February. Although there are long periods of time between not dancing and dancing, I’ve learned that returning to something you once loved the most in your life is definitely a risk worth taking.
Reestablishing your passion gets you back into a place of familiarity and comfortability. Even though my body is nowhere near as flexible as it used to be and cracks much more than it did when I was dancing every day, I don’t regret my decision in returning to my old addiction. Although I’m not as attached to it as I used to be and I know literature is the right decision, I’m glad I had the opportunity to get myself involved again. Reverting back to something that’s been my adoration for so long helps me destress, and even if I may not necessarily want to be physically involved my entire life, I know it’s still there for me now. Dancing brings a sense of balance to my life that I lacked when I wasn’t physically active. I know I’m decent at it, and I don’t have the same worries I used to have in middle school and high school. I get to view dance from a more detached perspective, and that’s where I’ve found my balance. Though I’m not dancing every day I’m still able enjoy and appreciate everything that goes into it and find that if I revert back to it enough, my life feels complete.
