A hop, skip, and a broken knee away from my dream career.
A true story of how the death of one dream gave birth to another.
Synopsis:
I was training most of my life to become a Musical Theatre performer and dreamed of dancing on the West End, but when I couldn’t afford my school fees anymore and after a long journey, found myself in Sweden with a broken knee. I spent a long time struggling with the death of my dream, reflecting on my life and trying to no longer identify myself as a dancer, until this brought me to discovering my love of writing and filmmaking, which I hope to fill the rest of my life with. This is a story about how the death of one dream gave birth to another.
All the world’s a stage.
At least my world was, my days were filled with practice and perfection. Each day I studied the words and movements created by another. Trying to make what was already portrayed, uniquely my own. What better way to live when you haven’t dared to formulate a character of your own?
It is difficult to know what place we have in this world, and even more so, knowing how our parts should be played.
Every morning I would rise before the sun so that I could have a swim or a run before preparing myself to travel to my Performing Arts school. Dressed in my leotard and pink tights with my hair tucked neatly in a bun, I entered the studio for our 8 am warm-up routine.
With my blood pumping and mind readily alert, It was time to take on a character. Contemporary, Shakespearean or Classical, it didn’t matter to me, for I felt alive with the text I’d been studying for many evenings before.
Some Singing, Choreography, and a few press-ups later it was time for Ballet and Tap. Some may not like it, I love it! The strength and precision required to be as elegant as a swan contra the rhythm and loose ankles required for tap set my soul on fire. I would practice these steps long after my classes were over, queuing at the supermarket, in the shower and I swear even in my sleep! I wanted to get it right, it had to be perfect! Because I wanted this to be my life, more than anything.
And then came the day when everything changed, when my world was turned upside down.
It wasn’t until the morning after that it really hit me, I was in the middle of my morning run through the fields of dew and wildflowers when I suddenly couldn’t breathe, I collapsed to my knees desperately gasping for air, because at that moment I realized that I would not be attending school that day, or the next day or even the day after that! At that moment, it was like all of the oxygen and beauty were sucked out of the air and my dream of performing on the West End grew further and further away out of my reach until not even the stars seemed to shine for me anymore.
I spiraled, I blamed myself, I blamed the world, it wasn’t fair. How can something you’ve worked so hard for disappear in an instant? After persistently torturing my brain and many endlessly thoughtful walks in the ever-giving nature, I decided that this can’t be the case, that I would not tolerate such injustice. I started plotting a way to get my dream career back in my sights.
So I became a bartender, not what you had in mind huh? Well, I needed the money. School and dance shoes are not cheap and I figured working with something practical would help keep me in shape. But then the drinking started. It is far too easy to drown your sorrows in a bottle of rum and equally tempting to flirt and make friends, after all, it did pass the time. And time did pass, almost a year had crawled by and I was no closer to going back to school, how have I not saved any money yet? The morning lark was becoming a nocturnal creature, one only interested in numbing the absence of inspiration with anything willing to fill the void. I can’t carry on like this, if I do I will lose everything I ever liked about myself to the misery of this existence.
Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith right? Be bold, be brave. That’s why I sold all of my belongings and left without even enduring a sincere goodbye. It wasn’t their fault, they tried to love me and give me the life I deserved, why does this moment feel so selfish? All I wanted was to re-embody the version of myself that once made you so proud. I wanted to chase my dream to prove that dreaming isn’t in vain. That if you want something badly enough and are bold enough to give up everything in the pursuit of it, it will be summoned into existence.
Well, that didn’t really work out. Martha Graham’s school of contemporary dance, Cannes, France would never see me audition or struggle to understand yet another foreign language, it was one hell of a journey though! A lost passport, a lack of money, and a long journey across borders carrying only my beautiful dance uniforms, a set of second-hand ski equipment, and my ‘bare essentials’, with only a 10 Euro Nokia phone and a notebook to document the journey. My first love and partner of almost 5 years ran away with me, whether we were running to our goals or just running away from who we had become, I’m still uncertain, but all we could do now was keep moving, there’s no turning back now.
One month later, my location was wildly unexpected, although at the same time blatantly obvious. It’s rather poetic actually that I would find my way to a place I had nothing but fond memories of. Those summers with my aunt and my grandmother, playing on those swings with my brother, riding on the back of my grandmother’s bicycle, and being served the most delicious food, in particular the perfect assortment of everything delicious prepared for breakfast every morning without fail.
When I arrived I was a shell of myself, breaking at the seams, I had forgotten the simple pleasures of life and love, the only thing still keeping me going was my need to attend that dance school, to recapture the beauty of my life in England, for the little girl that once enjoyed her summers here was nothing but a distant memory now, how could I still have anything in common with her?
I believed so much in my cause that I shed my baggage, I rid myself of distractions and influences. I figured that if I traveled light, I would surely get there sooner. So I pushed everything and everyone away from me in the hope of once again performing on stage, tapping in queues and dancing a delicate ballet in my sleep. Thinking this will make me whole again.
At first, I felt as though I had finally arrived home from battle. But my thoughts were riddled with the doubt that I may in fact not be home, that I won’t belong and the fear that I will be incapable of building a life here remains. I can only pray that I will find solace in my actions and can make my new life, my home.
I’ve moved so many times that I don’t think I really ever understood the concept of home as a place, and I no longer dared to love anything as I was certain it would only be lost or taken from me. I refused to let go of the most stable home I’ve ever had, and the place I found only peace and a positive presence, the dance studio.
So I decided to keep moving. I figured that if I am still moving towards my goal I won’t have to stop to look around, in search of a place for myself in this brave new world. I thought my intention was noble, I thought I was brave, but life has a way of making us meet our fears and face the music. I thought I could run forever, but it was time for me to confront the darkness and face myself with no facade or dream to hide behind.
I was living in a beautiful apartment, rented to me, and furnished by my loving family. Working in a well-paid restaurant chain, my life even seemed free of drama, but I was anything but content. I was only thinking about saving money and preparing for my audition at Martha Graham’s School of Contemporary Dance. I did not stop to smell the flowers or appreciate the gifts bestowed upon me. I still wanted to run away, but while I was running towards my dream, I stumbled and fell.
It was as if it happened in slow motion, I was air bound, defying gravity. The momentum of slipping on that wet floor caught me in such a rush that I couldn’t possibly see the ground coming towards me until reconnecting. My knee taking the full weight of my fall, securing maximum damage as it hit. A collision I imagine car crash victims to recall.
A week had passed, my knee was black and blue and the size of a bowling ball, I could barely stand, let alone run. Could it really be true? Could I really be injured? Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would end like this. If I had the opportunity to give it my all in that red velvet leotard with matching ribbons interlaced with my hair. Maybe If I was able to live out the audition I had been performing in my mind every day. Maybe it would have been easier to accept than never even having the chance to try.
I was most definitely in denial, and that was my first mistake, I kept thinking it would get better and that it looked worse than it actually was. When I fell asleep with the layers of ice and frozen peas on my knee the cold would ease the pain enough for me to dream myself deep into a fantasy, where I wake without pain, my knee stronger and more agile than ever before, jumping and dancing like a child. But when night turned to day, this fantasy was far from my reality. I would crawl out of bed after discovering that my knee was unbending and only causing me agony in the attempt, to slowly make my way to the shower where I would experience a moment of relief as the steaming hot water running over my knee for enough time would soften my tissue and allow my blood to flow freely, taking the pain away with it.
How could I not see what I was doing to myself? When I was drowning my knee in ibuprofen gel prior to wrapping it tightly in bandages as if a process of mummification, to then bury it under thick elastic support. All this so that I could get myself through my upcoming 10 hour waitressing shift, struggling to balance the weight of the plates and clumsily making my way up and down those 25 steps to the kitchen, trying not to break down in tears. Is pain really weakness leaving the body? That’s what they used to tell us in ballet class, a french foreign legion quote I’ve been told, designed to motivate us to endure pain and repeat. For how long will I endure this before I no longer have the strength to repeat?
It took me a long time to really see what was happening, to accept my injury and all that came with it and even more achingly so, the short life and definite death of my dream. What I didn’t know was that something beautiful was soon to bloom within me, blossoming and embellishing my life in a way I could never have predicted. Day by day, the pain grew more distant and I started to turn my attention to the things my dream would not have allowed me to experience, all of those pizzas and burgers I would have never eaten, the self-love I could now provide myself by doing absolutely nothing and not feeling like I had to train ten times harder to make up for it. All that time I now had to taste the wonders of life, just to see if they are my flavour. Before my accident, I had every hour of my life meticulously planned out but after, I found myself giving time to friends with dissimilar interests, doing unfamiliar things and finally forgave myself for all I had not done and finally for some of the things I had.
I had always written, only it was explicitly for myself. I would pray to the gods of creativity and the likes of Ridley Scott and Tarantino to allow me to portray the profound moments and messages depicted within their art, but never prayed to my own gods to allow me to be the one to create this art, sharing my views of this world and others. Until I met people who saw me for more than the beautiful performer and instead, praised my mind and my poetry. They believed I could create and so I created. I no longer bound myself to a definition of self, I am me and all the wonder that comes with it.
I have learned that I cannot live without creativity, but also that creativity is boundless and comes in many forms and the most beautiful thing you can do in this life is to create and to share it with the world, to share something you love with strangers is not so strange after all.
I write my thoughts and theories and share them on online platforms, I indulge in photography whenever possible, I show people the beauty within themselves and in life and memorialise it forever. I am a storyteller and soon I will share my stories with you, the scripts that lay dormant, waiting for the perfect performer and portrayer, the stories that live within my mind and my dreams and the pictures I will paint for you with a palette of cinema, music, and art.
I am not a dancer, I am a creator and I’ve never been happier. Maybe breaking my knee really was the best thing that has ever happened to me, for without it I would never have found out what my favourite flavours really are, and how much more I could really be.
