and I really, really want to take my coffee and chuck it as hard as I can at it. They should know that isn't how it works.
It isn't real. Love. It can't happen. Those movies aren't real.
I know.
Finally got some feedback from class today -
Stop saying no. You need to learn how to play. There's this little voice inside your head that wants everything to be perfect. You need to turn that off. Throw it away and play.
Right. Perfectionist me, who was trained to know everything that is wrong and right and trained only to do everything exactly right or get screamed at for doing it wrong, I'm going to be able to let that go and play. And the worst part is - I really, really thought I was already. I have been letting go. I'm not pointing my feet. I'm rolling on the floor. I'm falling. I look like an idiot 90% of the time. For God's sake I did an entire improv based off of Superman, Spiderman, Peter Pan, Batman and the Karate Kid, and I'm still not playing enough?!
The real kicker is that I know she's absolutely right. I just have no idea how to get there. That same voice is what's stopping me in so many other areas of my life too. "No, don't put your nose on her, she might not like that." "No, don't throw your weight there. What if you can't catch it?" "Come on Cassandra, be realistic. There is no way in hell that your leg is going to go there." "You want to call and yell and scream? Probably shouldn't. What if something bad happens?"
How do I let go and play? How do I just be me in the moment - whatever that is?
There is no wrong. If you want to shake your ass, then go on and shake your ass.
But I was taught to be something else. I had to be skinny. My foot had to point perfectly, always. Not being able to kick myself in the face was always going to be an issue. Better be able to do at least a triple or no one is going to want to work with you. And if you don't show people what you have, how in the world are they ever going to know you're a good dancer?
Even the way I'm thinking about this is wrong, and I know that. But I don't know how to shut it off. My brain is going through it all and just trying to find its way out.
"Okay, so on Thursday I'm going to go in there, and I won't move at all...that'll show her that I don't need to be perfect. Or maybe I'll just crawl on my hands and knees. Or what if I just ran up and down the stairs a billion times?"
NO! None of that is going to work because that isn't what she's asking you to do! She's asking you to stop doing this, this right here. Quit being academic about it. Stop believing you can reason it all out, because you can't. That isn't what it's about...
Which is something profound about life that I think I need to work through too.
Ken sent me this beautiful quote about hope a few weeks back...I don't have it on hand at the moment but its message is perfect. It was basically saying that hope is a terrible thing because it makes you dwell in future plans. What we should recognize is that we can't control what's going to happen. It's going to happen whether we like it or not, so instead of hoping for something, how about we just live in this very moment as fully as we can? Seeing it and feeling it for what it is, with no expectations for a future version of it.
I hated it when he first gave it to me, because hope was all I had, and it's all I wanted to have. I get it now. Not fully, I'm sure, but a little more at least. I'm never going to be all of those things I was "supposed" to be. Life isn't going to be what it was "meant" to be. Time to start dealing with what I am. Time to figure out how to play with what I've got.
I've nothing to prove. Not a thing.
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