I think I was around 11 years old when I took my first ballet class but I was already taken with ballet well before then. I can clearly remember watching my favorite ballet movie whenever possible and dancing in the living room, leaping in the hall, and twirling in my bedroom and wherever else I had the space.
The movie was the Nutcracker. To be specific, it was this one:
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture starring the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Oh how I loved it. I still pretend to have flowing peacock feathers whenever I watch it. No, I’m not joking at all. In my mind, I look and dance just like she did.
My time as a young dancer didn’t last long. Finances as well as the after school program being underfunded and discontinued were the reasons for it’s end. To say my heart was broken is an understatement. My little heart hurt so bad that I couldn’t even control the tears. I was able to go through a costume fitting, a shoe fitting and a stage show. I had had a taste of what it meant to study dance along with friends and be considered a dancer. It was everything I wanted and more so in my room, behind my closed door, I prayed as hard as I could for dance to come back around so that I could have it again. I wanted nothing more than to be right back in a studio pointing my toes.
Unbeknownst to me, the chance to pursue ballet was right around the corner waiting to pull me in.
This was only the beginning, not the end.
To Ballet Again 