As I sat in an 8:00am, five-day per week Anatomy and Physiology class, pursuing my Biology/Pre-Medicine degree, I heard the rain pound against the 18th-century windows of the Science Building. Most people would have been agitated, as the rain belabored five inches from their face; but not me.
As I fought sleep and felt my body sway, as if I may collapse right there on my desk, I began to find a song in the less than ideal August weather. As the song crescendo-ed, my feet began to tap; I could not even stay awake, from the waist up, and yet, below the waist, I was the next Fred Astaire.
I walked backed to my dorm room, after the one hour and twenty-minute class dismissed, where I had planned to sleep the day away. But, I did not. I tossed and turned, as if, yet again, I was dancing. "Enough!" I thought. "Something has to give," and it was clearly not the music, that seemed to be electrifying, in my exhausted body. So, it seemed it would be my sleep.
At that moment, I received a call from my mother. Saved by the bell! She purported a story about my grandmother, aunt, and their seemingly scandalous week. My aunt, apparently, spoke that she was on a strike, from spending any discretionary money, and yet, she left her debit card at a boutique; my grandmother received a call from the store's owner, a good friend, who asked my grandmother to relay the message of the card's location. My grandmother, then, texted my aunt: "Your sins will find you," a Bible favorite of hers. My mother and I had a quick laugh, said our I love yous and parted. "Your sins will find you," I thought, repeatedly.
It was no secret that I had fallen into a slump. I was doing my life and not living it, so, I began to analyze why. The origin of the initiation seemed to be when I moved to college, exactly one year ago, where I had stopped dancing, in exception to my recreational Dance minor. My sins had found me, right there, in residence hall Babcock, room 4.
Could it be so simple? I called my mother back, in a panic, knowing I was on the trail, that led to being an unhappy Medical Doctor, wiping snot from kids' faces. I frantically told her about my morning, and about my sins and passions. I recall repeating, "I have to transfer!" She suggested I bumped my Dance minor to a major and take it from there.
My sophomore year of college, I danced. Every day. I was in the studio 24 hours, 7 days per week. I was going to work for this. Because this was living a life and not doing a life. At the conclusion of my Sophomore year, where I had danced with Twyla Tharp, one of Modern dance's second generation of founders, I traveled to Manhattan, where I was one of 36 young professionals chosen to complete and Labanotation and Laban Movement Analysis certification, equivalent to a Masters in Dance.
Returning to college, the next August, not only was I a Dance major, but my hard work had led me to becoming a bored Dance major. Again, my sins and my passions had found me. I was stuck in the mud, and after all of my hard work, I was not going to settle for what felt like mediocrity. So, I decided to pick one foot out of the mud; then, the other. And if I could not walk, I would crawl. And that is what I did.
No time later, I opened my email to find life-changing news, from New York University, the second "Top 10 Schools for Dance," as distinguished by "College Magazine". The next morning, I was an enrolled student at New York University, where I would earn my B.F.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography and my B.S. in Exercise Biology, not completing deserting my medical roots.
Now, I stand, as a New York University graduate, in Times Square, again, hearing the belabor of rain that has the city agitated; but, there, I stand feeling the electricity run through my body, as the nonexistent music crescendos, and my feet begin to tap. My sins have found me.
