A wee bit of insight

*note* if this post sounds like I'm giving up on getting my level II (or further). I am not. Just shifting around a bit
The truth is I was burnt out. It wasn't really dancing that I was burnt out on. I was burnt out on failure. I've gotten so very sick of the inner struggle and the outer struggle and the beating myself over the head with guilt for not being strong enough.

I'd gotten really close to being ready to test for my level II, but when it came down to it I wasn't ready. I'd spent half the year preparing for that week long so I'd be able to make it through well and strong. I just didn't spend enough time actually drilling heh. I had my little cry about it and then got over it a few days later and started to look at my next plan of attack. Two weeks later I got my new car which I was so sure was going to help me with being able to afford to drive to the studio more and blah blah blah. Two days after that the car was totaled and I had some lovely torn ligaments in my neck. I wasn't badly injured you know, but it was enough for quite a lot of pain and no dancing. It took four and a half months before I was released to dance.

That certainly wasn't the first set back. The major one was Vaughn. I'd just left my troupe because I wanted to spend more time training at Suhaila's and elsewhere. At that point I was driving up there three times a week and taking every workshop I could get my hands on. In fact I think I'd been to three workshops just in those first few weeks of February. Then after a workshop with DaVid in Santa Cruz, I stood in my friend (and first teacher) Colleen's house and called a number I did not recognize after and awfully weird message left by my mother. My step-father had been in a motor cycle accident and it looked like he was paralyzed. Well, a week later he was dead and every single thing about my life changed.

It's funny I took my first level II week long not very long after his death. It was already paid for and the hotel was already booked. Right before I'd been given and antibiotic for something and remember having a weird sense of foreboding when I read the side effect paper. I ignored it of course. I ignored it when I had debilitating intestinal cramps the whole week. I was so unprepared for that workshop that Cyd had to lift my legs into the car at the end of the day. I'd be standing and all of a sudden find myself bent over in pain. I tried my best to ignore it most of the week and when the cramps came I would just bite my tongue and keep going but the evenings and nights were excruciating. It never occurred to me to go home. The Monday after the workshop found me in with my doctor receiving several bags of IV fluids and later finding out that I had c-dificile toxin thanks to the antibiotic. What the hell was I thinking.

After that I decided we had to move to El Cerrito so I could be closer to the studio since the drive is a big part of the problem for me. I don't think I can actually write about the two years of drama and heartache trying to sell our house and move was. Needless to say it never happened and it felt like another death to mourn.

So after the car accident I couldn't get myself to go back. I went back for a few weeks and then we took a vacation to Maui. When we got back it was like all of the upheaval and grief of the last three years (2-2.5 at that time) just came plunking down on my head. I backslid back into anxiety not wanting to go anywhere really much less get my butt to class. After weeks and weeks of getting up every Thursday morning and then hating myself because I couldn't get myself out the door I'd finally decided to give myself a break.

I didn't step foot in the Studio until January of this year and that was really really hard for me to do. I had so much anxiety I had to go a few times and just walk in and hang out for a few minutes before I ever took an actual class. I was back a few weeks again until my mom started having some health issues that to me take precedence over getting to class.

That's what has been going on the last few months, and I am so freaking burnt out on it all. Because, for some odd reason I never see these things for what they are, life and things that happen, but somehow as failures on my part to be superwoman. It doesn't matter that I have a body that isn't always healthy, or a brain chemistry that doesn't always support consistency...no I need to be perfect so I can be an dancer damn it, and if I can't be that then I'm never going to get there right? Doesn't that just sound ridiculous?

So right now I'm feeling blessed and excited because someone I trust and admire is going to be teaching right around the corner from my house, and I have the opportunity to get back to doing what I love without the pressure that I have felt for so long. Not to mention the online classes! This is what I want right now. I want to dance.


P.S. No one is to blame for any of this but me. I put the pressure on myself. Also this is such an abridged version of life in the past few years I can't even begin to wrap myself around all of the emotions.