2005-01-31 - 6:53 a.m.
The other day, for some reason, I went back and started reading my entries from France. This one caught my eye...it was an entry I wrote after Tiff told me that one of her friends made a comment about "older" guys like me taking dance class:
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I just talked with a friend and she told me about one of her friends who, in reference to me, said something along the lines of "what is the deal with these old guys suddenly thinking they can be dancers?" How do I put what I am thinking into words - **** him!
Whatever your name is, and to anyone else who feels the same way, listen up. Talk is cheap, you want to compare yourself to me, just tell me where and when and lets dance - literally. And remember, you can't just be better than me, you had better be ten times better than me because that is how much longer than me you have been dancing! And if you ARE better than me, then the only question becomes how long is it going to be before I surpass you like I have surpassed everyone else around me!
I remember at Stanford when I tried out for a dance piece and got rejected. A few days later, the person in charge of deciding who got in apologized to me, and as mean as it might sound, there was only one thought going though my head. There will come a day when I am an incredible, respected and admired dancer. There will certainly be one night when I am having coffee with a friend, and we are reminiscing about the past, and I will have a great story. "You know, you might find this hard to believe, but when I was at Stanford, I tried out for a dance piece and the person in charge actually rejected me!" And we will laugh together, thinking what a dolt that person must feel like now.
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I look back now at that person and shake my head with disappointment - that I could have been so angry, so very bitter towards the world. At the same time, I look back on that person with a great deal of respect - I used to be so very motivated. I was motivated in a very sick way - motivated by competition and anger, but motivated nonetheless. Then started the medication.
I look at my entries now and there is a sudden change in the tone around the time I started taking medication and it never quite goes back to the way it was. I know that I am better now, that I don't sit in my room and cry because Tiff got a part in a dance production or scream at the top of my lungs in my car on the way to class because I hated the fact that I had to share a passion with my girlfriend...but there were some good sides to that Nick. I used to work so hard at dance...I mean we'd do a combination that I couldn't get, and after class, I would sit there and do it over and over and over again until I was in so much pain, I couldn't do it anymore. Then I would go home and lie about how I was limping because we had a hard class that night. I know that's not a good thing, but the spirit of it is good - the drive is desirable.
I suppose the thing that bothers me is not that I am losing my passion for dance...I always knew that dance would be a phase, just like all the others I have had. What bothers me is that I haven't moved on to anything new. At any given point in my life, I have had a dream phone-call or a dream letter...some form of communication telling me that I had finally accomplished my greatest goal - that I had succeeded in that year's passion. When I was in highschool and college, it was a call from NASA saying I had been selected as an astronaut. When I was in graduate school, it was a letter from a French conservatory saying I had been accepted into their school. When I came back from France, it was a call from an artistic director saying he wanted me to join his ballet company.
It doesn't bother me that my dream phone call isn't from an artistic director anymore...it bothers me that right now, I don't have a dream phone call.
