The Sleeping Beauty

Friday, April 18, 2025 @ 12:49am MDT

“Health to the princess, wealth to the princess, long live the Princess Aurora.” 👸💤✨🩰

Dance has been a constant throughout my life.  Or at least it had been.  I danced at various schools as a child and took classes in tap, jazz, and ballet in addition to performing in the dance chorus in middle and high school musical theatre productions for seven years straight.

Then college.  I auditioned for the college dance company and remember thinking that was one of the most difficult auditions I had ever attended.  I was shocked to find out I had even placed alternate.  I should have auditioned again the following year to see if I could get in after a second attempt, but alas I allowed dance to slip through the cracks and escape me for years.

Music, psychology, and college socializing took priority over my past life of dance.

Senior year, I took a ballet class elective for a semester where I learned how to spell ballet terms in French for the time ever and some background information on ballet history.

During my post graduate years of struggling to find full time work as a music therapist while working a full time retail job from home, I discovered that one of the studios where I used to dance was offering adult summer dance classes and adult tap classes throughout the year.  I danced for several years enjoying some summer contemporary dance  and hip hop classes, and took part in “Tappin’ Tuesdays” to help dance my stress away.

After finding work as a full time music therapist and moving to central Massachusetts, I happened across some tap dance classes offered as part of a local night education initiative at one of the vocational schools.  (Thank you, mail, for once).  I took part in this for a time until my work schedule became busier and I allowed my work as a music therapist to consume much of my life, as I so often do.

After moving to El Paso, Texas in October 2020 peak pandemic, I had hoped I eventually might find some dance classes somewhere when things began opening back up in a post COVID-19 world.  Although I did not find any tap classes, I did find some hip hop classes not too far from where I live for which I was grateful.  I loved that these classes were for dancers of all levels — exactly the type of class I needed now as an out of shape adult, where I can learn and sweat and have fun and not feel judged.  I love the feeling of working towards something in dance.  A goal.  Like a combination to a song that we work on and add to little by little each week.

And then… years of nothing.  Mostly post high school, it has been a lot of nothing, while I have desperately been searching, trying to find my way back to dance in any way possible.

Twenty plus years of nothing.

After surviving a manipulative and emotionally abusive friendship of a similar length, I have been searching for ways to return to myself.  To find my way back home.

Dance always felt like home for me as a child.  I could be having the worst day and I would be able to lay my soul bare on the dance floor.  Drop my cares at the door.  Dance any worries I had away.  By the time I left, I would often forget if I was feeling stressed or angry or sad.  I felt complete.

Finding ways to move your body that feel good to you is pretty much clutch.  I cannot recommend this enough.

After dealing with years of feeling so out of control due to the abuse I endured, being gaslit about it every time I would confront and attempt to communicate and resolve what did not sit right, feeling confused and unsure and knowing in my head and heart and body and soul that something was off yet wanting desperately this thought to be wrong plus what would that mean?  My whole life would have to change, my views of this person I had built up in my mind, the inconsistencies.  So much.  Too much.

Better to pretend all is well and maybe all will become well and the lie will become true.  I dug myself in such deep holes, but I acknowledge now this is not my fault.  A person who manipulates like this does so in every aspect of his life, not just with me.  The way he would separate you out from others to make you feel “special” — the late night talks I used to cherish, meant to poke and prod and find your weaknesses and insidiously manipulate you behind the backs of those with whom you are close while he has you for himself.

“The limpy gazelle.”

This gazelle is no longer limping around carelessly and helplessly.

It took standing up for myself slowly over time which lead to his break-ins and stalking and me feeling even more out of control… to me ultimately gaining back control in the best way.  I am actively in therapy and I have nourished a beautiful support network.

So what might seem crazy is that I am grateful for it all.  It was awful, the most awful thing I have ever endured in my life and I would not wish any of it on anyone, including the person who did this to me.  I am changed because of it all and still working through a lot, as I will be for the rest of my life most likely.  The PTSD is real. Had I not gone through what I went through, I would not know what I know now.

I would not be who I am now.  And perhaps I would not have found my way back to dance in the way that I have.

I have not taken classical ballet classes in years.  Dance is something that will always be mine, and something that I had long before the trauma, long before I met and knew this asshole and it will be with me long after.

Returning to dance and ballet right now feels like coming home.  It is challenging, pushes my limits, helps me focus, allows me to place my cares aside and/or dance them out using the entirety of my body and being.  I am not perfect but the thing about ballet is that no one really is.  We are all working towards individual goals based on our current level of performance and ability.

It is like I finally feel more and more myself every time I show up.  And simply showing up is a huge portion of the work.  I show up and I can feel the weights lifted off my chest and soul each and every time.

I am not where I used to be years ago in terms of dance ability, and perhaps I never will be.  As I age, my body is not able to do many of the things that it used to and certainly not as easily. That is ok.  I am where I am now and I am ready for a renewed, healing journey in the realm of dance. 🩰✨