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What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was very little that question was terribly easy to answer. I was going to be a Prima Ballerina. Like lot of little girls, I started dance classes when I was three years old. I started out with ballet and tap once a week, but soon I was obsessed. Eventually I had classes nearly everyday of the week, many days more than one class. I was taking ballet, tap, jazz and even modern at times. It was clear from a very young age that I would have a classic dancers body, slight and petite and I was certain that this would lead to a wonderful career in dance. My family had a membership with the ABT in San Fransisco and I was lucky enough to see many performances. I got to attend rehearsals and I even saw Mikhail Baryshnikov dance in his prime. Hell, I even saw Patrick Swayze perform before he became a movie star.I pestered my dance teacher until she allowed my to go on pointe. I was so young that I had to buy the smallest pair of toe shoes they made. As I got older my attention turned away from ballet and it's very disciplined nature to jazz and dancing to my favorite songs. I would choreograph dances to everything I heard and I would play music videos over and over until I learned all the steps. I was a member of a dance troupe and we performed often, but as my peers developed adult bodies, I maintained that slight and curve less ballet body and was demoted to dance with the younger girls.
I was always very ambitious as a child and I was trying my hardest to get my parents to send me to a performing arts school like the one on Fame. I had dreamed of a life on stage, but the fates were beginning to turn against me. I was staring to question my ability to compete at that level. I like to say that I preferred being a big fish in small pond to being a small fish in a big pond, but really, I was just a big old wuss.
About the same time as I was having doubts that I could survive the life of a dancer, my families finances took a nose dive, why is another story. We could no longer afford dance classes and I was was cut off cold turkey. I kept practicing at home and dancing wherever I was, but eventually it fell away. Aside from the random tap dancing in my kitchen and dancing with the kids for fun, I haven't really danced in years. I miss it sometimes, partly because I defined myself as a dancer for so long.
A dancer isn't the only thing I wanted to be as a kid, but I promised one story at a time and this one is over. Now it's back to tatting and unresponsive customers. I hope you enjoyed this little trip to my past.
