senior doors (part 2): radiate



As my senior year draws to a graceful close, so do many of the doors in my life, giving way to the opening of new paths. It is a beautiful time of transition for me, and with each door closed, a window is opened in my heart, allowing the aroma of sweet memories to waft into the rooms of my soul. 
___ 

My parents first enrolled me in dance because of how dreadfully clumsy I was (and still am.) They hoped for me to find a more graceful rhythm in my everyday movement and (I suspect) to live up to my name. 

It did not take long for dance to become one of my greatest passions. And over these years, dance became a very familiar path to me, a path leading to lifelong relationships, newfound beauty, the thrill of adventure... It has carried me to different studios and instructors, techniques and stages. It has guided me to meet some of the most influential and memorable friends that I will ever know. It has lead me to challenges that I never would have attempted and accomplishments I would have never expected to accomplish. It was a path clothed in the atmosphere of joy, and I loved every minute of it. 

A blog post can't do very much justice to such an enormous passion in a person's life ... but in taking a  moment to look back on this beautiful stage, all I can do is smile (while rapidly blinking away the watery blur in my eyes as I stare at the screen.) 

I will miss the glorious monotony of barre during weekly classes. I will miss pointe shoes and bruised toes and sore muscles. I will miss the high adrenaline and the unbelievable exhaustion. I will miss the moments spent in the wings during a performance, breathless in awe of the present. I will miss my teachers. I will miss the laughter that can only be shared by a bunch of tired dancers who have known each other since day one. I will miss the empty stage. I will miss those little dancers who saw in me the same ballerina that I saw in the sugar plum fairy so many years ago... And I am so, so grateful for dance, for something that has made it so hard to say 'goodbye.'

I think that the deepest passions are those that have the power to fill a heart, illuminating it with an incomparable brilliance. For me, this was dance. For me, it still is dance... though now, perhaps the brilliance takes on a different hue. 

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