Ok. So now I can freely speak. You have had SO many "career-enders." And I know that is part of the frustration and anger but it also shows that you get beyond them. You have talent, passion and persistence beyond anyone I know. This is your goal. This is your dream. Your dream just needs to remain fluid until you find where your body fits in. Just keep working at improving what is within your control and accepting what is not. Then you can find a way to make the "unacceptable" work. If anyone can do this, you can. Honey, all the great dancers have their struggle story...grow a very thick skin. Don't let anyone stand in the way of your dream. Your dream dies only when you choose to walk away. No one can take it from you unless you allow them.
I will never choose to walk away. I fear that the day when I am picked up and carried away is approaching, and I am nowhere near ready for it.
The text that prompted all of those beautiful things my mother said - "Mom, I just want to be able to do what I'm supposed to do, but I can't because I have a crappy body that can't do a thing. At all. And it's career ending. And I'm sick and tired of fighting so damn hard and never doing it...my hips, my back, my shoulders, my butt. My silver lining is my pretty eyes but they don't help me dance."
Where that exploded from - and if you know anything about me, you have got to know that I mean business with this project from everything I'm about to say - about two weeks ago, my back started up again. Waking up stiff as a board with absolutely no movement capability in your spine is always fun, especially when your life is dancing. I kept pushing though. Then, that unexplainable pain in my lower right hand side of my back, right where that dimple is, suddenly becomes unbearable - and that's coming from someone who can handle a lot when it comes to pain. It hurts to walk, and there I am still attempting to manage huge leaps without grimacing so my professors won't catch on. "This is what it's going to be like. Even if this isn't the end, this is the beginning of it. This is how you're going to go down."
I freak myself out enough to want to get checked, but don't have the time, except maybe for a 1am hospital trip alone, in Philadelphia...no thanks. So I keep pushing. It's a little better now...mostly.
Then, I read this article. This infuriating, obnoxious, narrow-minded article that is primarily attacking Bill T. Jones. As if that wasn't bad enough, then she has the audacity to go after me. "I can deal with scoliotics." Excuse me? So that was actually a debate for you at some point. You actually thought that because my bones are screwed up, I shouldn't be put on stage. For a second, that was in your brain. Awesome. Well guess what lady, I have a whole lot to say about that which I am uncomfortable writing in this space. I sure hope we meet someday. How dare you.
Then rehearsal, and I get another, "You're trying too hard," correction on top of "You're all in your shoulders."
HOIENAPWEOIH3298#@#%U(*#UAHORIHOIEH$(#*$523!!!!!!!
I know. I know. I know. I KNOW.
What I don't know is how to fix it.
Here's the thing, I have had to fight my entire life, tooth and nail, flesh and blood, skin and bones for this ridiculous passion I was born with. It's absolutely cruel that I was born to love nothing more than dance but to be given such a damned vehicle of expression. Torture. So, I don't know how not to try too hard. The second I let go, something goes out of whack. My turnout turns in. My back does whatever the hell it wants. My ribcage protrudes out to California. My elbows hyperextend. I cannot not try. I don't understand how it's possible. My body doesn't get it.
And I don't feel this freaking shoulder thing.
Then I wake up this morning and my left hip is stuck. My right already cracks and pops like crazy. I'm positive I have arthritis in there, I just don't want the X-rayed confirmation. That'll be my 8th confirmed arthritic joint. Reminder - I'm only 21. But today, Christ Almighty that left hip would not move. It was so incredibly painful. If it would just pop, I might have a shot. But no matter how many awkward and vicious positions I contorted myself into, it refused to release. Doris Humphrey had to retire because of arthritis in her hip, but she was much older...
It actually affected my dancing today. I could not lift that leg right. It hurt way too much. So, my butt had to get in on the action and if you know anything about classical technique at all, it's that you never lift your leg with your ass. So of course I got called out on it. As if I wasn't miserable enough with this prison I've been doomed to. Let's make sure everyone in the class knows I'm a disaster. Awesome.
Relax your hip flexer.
You should do pigeon more. It'll relax your hip flexer and loosen your butt. (Way to draw attention to my big butt...again. Awesome.)
At that point I was just relieved that the stretch I was in could hide my tears. I don't know how to make anyone understand and I am sick and tired of making excuses. I don't need to do more pigeons. It won't help. I do thousands of them every day. What I need is more time. I need a new body. One that isn't on its way out.
This isn't fair. And it isn't fair that I don't know how to feel about it. On the one hand, he's completely right because no matter what I've been given, I've got to figure out how to make it conform and look like what it's supposed to. But on the other hand, I'm dealing with a lot, every single day. I just want a few hours in a "normal" body to see if it hurts like mine. To compare the struggles. To see if I'm as abnormal as I've been trained to know I am.
No dancing tonight. My hip is still stuck. So until that fixes itself...here I'll sit. Angry, scared and...well...scared.
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