Everyone has a passion, something that they center their life around in so that they develop a love hate relationship with it. An activity or hobby that you hold so close to your heart, in a way which you can’t imagine living your life without it. You live your life through it.
     I live my life through dance. 168 hours in a week and I can be found dancing at least 20 of those.  I live my life in the studio, at the school, on the stage, or on the field, constantly stretching, jumping, leaping, turning, and gracefully moving across the floor. Foodless, studyless, and sleepless nights day in and day out. Welcome to my life.
     The dreaded, repetitive statement: “Again”, says the coach, running each number so many times till the point that girls leave to go throw-up. Being turned down at auditions because “you aren’t what we are looking for”, and questioning if it’s worth it when a teacher tells you that he “will make you cry, bleed, and scream”. But guess what, he “doesn’t care”, he “only wants dedicated members in the class”.  
     I turn on the radio and each song that comes on I can remember having a combo to. I come home and dance my way around the house, turn here,leap there, and cartwheel around (until I bang my foot on the kitchen counter). I walk counting the beats 5-6-7-8. I sit in my school desk practicing paradiddles and shuffles, while the boy next to me thinks I am having a foot spasm. Oh, and what would my nightly math homework be like without sitting in the splits? I go through jazz shoes like water; rip here and hole there in every pair. I come home from the long day, and ice my feet and use a heating pad on my back. Hundreds of pirouettes come along with hundreds of blisters and calluses; all just adding to my already beautiful feet.
     Disappointment and defeat rush through my body when my teams name isn’t called in the top three at competition. But, when then the hard work doesn’t pay off, I wake up the next morning and return to practice. Lectures, films and more lectures on how, “ you got to want it”, and that “your best just wasn’t good enough”. Triumph comes with the defeatment.
     Why do I do it? I do it for the same reason that all other dancers would give: there’s no greater feeling than to move to a piece of music and let the rest of the world around you disappear.

     I live my life through dance. How bout you?