The rhythm of my life

Steady 8 count rhythms, music blasting in my ear, my stomach is turning somersaults and my heart is pounding in my chest, my shoes click as I walk confidently across the stage, my face glued into a grin, I refuse to let it betray how nervous I feel. Nervous is the N word when you're a performer. The music swells, 1, 2, 3, 4, and with a kick I've started, pushing my way to the front, nailing toe knocks and spinning on a hop scuff up into a grab off on my right foot. "Back it up!" and we move back, and then it's my turn, and suddenly I'm sailing across the stage, I feel light as a feather, my feet are flying to the beat of the music, the rhythm is a part of me now, nothing can stop me, nothing, nothing at all. I know I've nailed it before I'm even through, and the smile on my face is no longer fake, it's real, a feeling that compares to nothing else.

I'm not surprised later when I run my finger down the page taped to the wall and see first place next to my name. I'm not surprised when they call my name for the All-American team and hang a medal around my neck. I'm not surprised when I open that long-awaited letter, and find that I've finally made the top team in my studio, for another amazing year of clogging.

But then I wake up, and I remember that the feeling was only that; a feeling. I didn't get first place, and I didn't make the All-American team. I opened that long-awaited letter and I was on Sensations again, and someone else was celebrating that night, and I sat on the swingset for hours after the Folkfest was over and cried until I had no tears left to cry. And I had to weigh my options for my life and realize that no matter how happy clogging made me, I wasn't going to ever be at the top, no matter how hard I tried, or how big I smiled. Life is full of one way streets, and I had to turn down one of them and leave clogging behind in favor of something that maybe I have a chance of succeeding in.

But I still wake up with freestyle music in my head. I still pore over my photo albums from Branson. I still remember that one final year, the year that I thought I had finally made it, the year that I thought was the beginning of something amazing, that turned out to be the end. I don't think I'll ever know why I didn't get picked to be on Premiere. I don't think I'll ever know what was wrong with me, why everyone made All American except for me, why I could never seem to quite do well enough. I don't think I'll ever know why I didn't really fit in. But despite the politics and the breaks in my heart, I loved clogging. I still love clogging, and I miss it like crazy. When I danced, I felt like nothing in my life or in the world could ever bring me down.

I stopped clogging when I stopped dancing with RME. I didn't dance at home, not in my room, not at all. I thought maybe if I just cut it out of my life completely, I would stop missing it. That, I think, was a mistake. It's been almost a year, and I still miss it. Maybe I should keep trying, keep dancing. I don't know where I can practice, I don't have a place, but I think this is something I need to work out. Because clogging is part of me, and it's a part of me that I miss. Maybe I won't get to perform, maybe I won't get to compete. But I can still dance, and no one, no one at all, can take that away from me.