Forever Dancing

Friends: you Irish Dance, what’s that???

When we were young we were dazzled by these unreachable champions. They wore beautiful dresses and they flew like birds across the stage. We never could see the hours of practice and injuries at that age. We only saw power and grace perfected.

There was so much love in that young, pigeoned toed dancer’s heart. All she wanted to do was learn how to fly too. How to learn to be a musician with her feet. Creating rhythms that feel like a heart beat. It was that little girl’s everything Always keeping her awake at night with dreams.

And now she is older, she is you. Standing before a mirror and not sure on what to do. You’re tired and it feels like those dreams seemed to slip away You can’t pin point when or what day But somehow they did. And you’re starting to feel undone. As if failure has won.

But hope is not lost. I hope the missing puzzle piece hits you one day, When you finish that move you have been working months on. When you finally get it and the pride comes rushing in. When you finally win that 1st. Let it all rush in and never let it go.

I hope you fall head over heels for dance once more. Eager to walk through the studio’s doors And make yourself into exactly who that little girl knew you could be. Because you can.

I hope you fall so in love that it becomes the reason you breathe. That it fills you with so much fulfillment and happiness, That the blisters and bruises just don’t matter. Because you proved that you could do it.

I hope that all of that love and passion pays off. That one day, you will get that recall. That you might find yourself on that podium. Or whatever goal you dreamed of at night, while you ran through your steps in your head. Right before bed, Every night you saw yourself in that place.

When we were young we were dazzled by these unreachable champions. They wore beautiful dresses and they flew like birds across the stage. We never could see the hours of practice and injuries at that age. We only saw power and grace perfected.

There was so much love in that young, pigeoned toed dancer’s heart. All she wanted to do was learn how to fly too. How to learn to be a musician with her feet. Creating rhythms that feel like a heart beat. It was that little girl’s everything Always keeping her awake at night with dreams.

And now she is older, she is you. Standing before a mirror and not sure on what to do. You’re tired and it feels like those dreams seemed to slip away You can’t pin point when or what day But somehow they did. And you’re starting to feel undone. As if failure has won.

But hope is not lost. I hope the missing puzzle piece hits you one day, When you finish that move you have been working months on. When you finally get it and the pride comes rushing in. When you finally win that 1st. Let it all rush in and never let it go.

I hope you fall head over heels for dance once more. Eager to walk through the studio’s doors And make yourself into exactly who that little girl knew you could be. Because you can.

I hope you fall so in love that it becomes the reason you breathe. That it fills you with so much fulfillment and happiness, That the blisters and bruises just don’t matter. Because you proved that you could do it.

I hope that all of that love and passion pays off. That one day, you will get that recall. That you might find yourself on that podium. Or whatever goal you dreamed of at night, while you ran through your steps in your head. Right before bed, Every night you saw yourself in that place.

Every year my school does secret buddies for the weeks leading up to the O and the weekend before we give our final gift/reveal at our schools send off party.

This year my secret buddy was the youngest one and made me this. To say it brought me tears of joy is an understatement. I can’t put into words how much I love this school and the people in it.

It never fails, always around this time of year I’m stressed to the max with school work. It’s simply because everything is due all at the same time and adding work to it my sophomore year was enough to drive me crazy. You think I would just stick to schooling and working right? Wrong.

It’s my senior year and I added dance back into the mix of my life. Oireachtas happens to land on the craziest time of the year for me and I’m going bananas.

But this is not a post to tell you all how stressed I am (because I am but I’m taking it day by day). Rather this is a post to reflect on how thankful I am that I can do the sport I’ve loved for so long, again. And that I can share it with some of my best friends and my literal family.

It’s truly a blessing that I am able to go to school, work part time and go to dance every single week. I’m so thankful for my parents who have helped me get to where I am, my university for providing me with a job and education as well as my dance school which is pretty much my second family.