A good day.

There's those dance days that make you feel defeated, and then there are those days where you surprise yourself and leave feeling like you can take over the world.

Thankfully, yesterday's class was the latter.

Although, we still didn't get to have Mrs. Lori, she did pop in and go over some recital stuff with us.
She played us the song we'll be dancing to and showed us a couple different options for costumes. There was this one that had three different colors--a rose, a soft blue, and a gold-- and lots of detail, then there was one that was a leotard and a (romantic) tutu separate, but had many more color options. When she asked our opinions, no one really said anything, so I spoke up, "I like the detail in the first one, but--coming from a photographer stand point--I really like that the second one is separate. I can use it for photo shoots." One of the girls really didn't want the first ones, and everyone else seemed to like the second ones, so we went with it. They look like this:

Then we had to choose between the gemstone colors and the pastels. She played the music, which is by the Vitamin String Quartet and I immediately freaked out because strings just do something to me I can't explain and I was so excited, and said she saw it as pastels, and we all agreed. So then we all wrote down our top three favorite colors of our choices so Mrs. Lori could decide how she would order them and choreograph according to the colors. Let me just say, I am beyond excited.
The music just makes me feel alive; like this is what I am here to do. Like I will be able to do this well and portray the picture in my heart that has been aching to be seen for years. I'm really hopeful about it. I'm pumped.

So the girls passed the paper around, picking their colors, changing their minds, talking possibilities and saying "Orchid" as "Orchard." When it got to just be dilly-dally conversation, I put the papers back in their folders, closed the book, and took it to Ms. Nancy. The girls wanted to keep looking at it and comparing things, but we were already starting class late, (Some of my Instep girls from the class before got approved for pointe shoes!!! I'm so proud!!) and now this was taking up time. I didn't want us to lose the whole class, and Mrs. Lori was in the other studio, so I just did it. (One of the girls later told me she liked that I did that. hehehe) Ms. Munro came in and we got the class started.

I'm having to do this Autoimmune Paleo diet thing to try and get my intestines to function normally, and I started on Wednesday. Let me tell you, day two has been the worst I have felt in a long time. I hate it. I had energy, but I felt drained. When we did a back cambre, my head immediately started pounding. I felt like I couldn't get enough breath, and at one point when I tried to catch up with deep breaths, the room started spinning and I lost vision for a second. It was scary and I hated it.
But somehow, even with all this, it was one of the best classes I've had.
Maybe because the feeling in my stomach took my focus away from the feeling of fear.

I was able to do complex pique combinations with ease. I successfully managed pirouettes on both sides. I even was able to do a plie rollup on one foot into arabesque and then into front attitude. These used to scare the crap out of me, and here I was, doing them.

At one point, after my group had already done a combination, I watched the feet of one of the girls dancing after me. It was an interesting moment where it hit me--those things I see other people's feet doing, those gifs I watch online or the combinations in rehearsal. I'm doing those. I'm dancing pointe. My feet are doing what this girls feet are doing. Successfully. My feet look like hers. I'm dancing en pointe.

I guess sometimes I waste all this effort thinking about how much I want to accomplish and how difficult it's going to be, instead of thinking of how far I've come and what I'm doing now. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to get to x,y,z. Look at where you are now. Look at the ground you've covered in this year--heck, the last 3 months. It's a lot to be proud of and grateful for.

So, once again, ballet reminded me of why I like life. And for this I am eternally grateful.