Keep Breathing

Tonight, for the first time in 8 years... I danced. In front of people. On a stage.

The piece was co-coreographed by myself and Marianne Jarvi, to Ingrid Michaelson's "Keep Breathing."

I have mixed feelings about the experience.

On the one hand I am proud of myself for doing it.  I danced with my friend Marianne who majored in Modern Dance at BYU.  We have known each other for 3 years now and have always said "if there's ever an opportunity..." and when the opportunity came, in the form of a Relief Society Activity which included a talent program... we took it.  Good for us!

It wasn't easy! Marianne has 4 kids and her husband is an MdPhd student/member of the Bishopric. I have 3 kids, a husband I see in the car for a few minutes each day during the week and bit on the weekends, and I am the Relief Society President.  Making the time to get together and choreograph/rehearse was not easy.  We had 4 sessions only, 3 of which our children accompanied us (so you know how well those ones went!).  I have not exercised regularly in years and cannot even recall the last time I stepped foot in a dance studio.  So the very fact that we just plain DID this... was an accomplishment.

And besides that... I cannot even tell you how good it felt to feel my body moving and stretching and breathing and dancing again. In all this time my love of dancing has not diminished one smidge.  I love it every bit as much as I did when it felt like it was my whole life.

On the other hand... I couldn't help but be disappointed.  I was tired and nervous and it showed.  I was tired because I got a horrible night of sleep yesterday and I am still recovering from my sinus infection, but why in the world was I nervous?  This was a Relief Society Activity! If ever there was an easy audience to be in front of... this was it! Yet I could not shake the nerves, and it most definitely affected my performance. I forgot simple choreography, I flopped out of a partnering move and nearly fell (it must have looked awful), I broke character at one point when someone cheered unexpectedly... I wasn't as clean as I had been in rehearsal. Bleh!  I didn't used to get nervous on stage. I remember telling people I was nervous and almost convincing myself that I was, but it was a lie.  I was always confident and perfectly thrilled to be there.  And back then if I didn't do well it sat better with me because at least I could say that I did my best.  This time I didn't have that satisfaction.

I think maybe if we'd had more time to clean the dance and to practice a bit the nerves could have been eased.  There were parts of the dance that only got choreographed this morning.  That's pretty rough on an old timer like me!

And even though people were so nice to us and said such kind things... I can't help but feel like they all knew it was just a very "meh,"..okay... performance.  And that really stinks. They know how much I love to dance. They know it's what I did in school. I don't want this one night to define what they think of me as a dancer. (I know. I'm the most prideful girl you know, huh?!?) They didn't get to hear my "But I haven't danced in 8 years! and Marianne and I didn't really get to practice this that much actually!" speech.  And I would have liked them to know all of those details. But really? Even if I did get to tell them all (and I did tell a few)... who wants to try and convince people that once upon a time you were good at something? Yuck.

Corey was there. He's only seen me dance once, but it was after I left the U in a very short and easy piece with a million other people.  I wanted him there tonight, but now I'm not so sure I'm glad he came.

Wow!  This is a depressing post, eh?

It probably sounds like I had a horrible night.  I didn't.  Even though it was crazy and I'm not thrilled with how I did... it was a chance to dance!  Huzzah!  And not every single thing about it went bad.  Parts of it were just fine.  And the rest of the activity was so fun!  I got to enjoy performances by other sisters and get to know everyone a little bit better!

One other thing to be proud of this evening: Even though on the inside I was slightly crushed with how things turned out, I accepted compliments with a smile and didn't say anything to people. That's an extremely hard thing for me to do in situations like this. The one exception may have been my dear friend Marie, and that's because she gave me the best compliment of the evening "you came alive," and throughout our conversation made me feel like she saw that even though tonight wasn't great that somewhere down inside me there is a dancer still.

I'm going to bed now.  If you read this whole dang post you get 5 stars and the satisfaction of knowing that you are a true friend.  Goodnight!