MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
How Old Are You?<\/p>\n
When I was 14, I moved to Washington D.C. to attend the\u00a0first school in the United States that offered ballet and academic subjects
under the same roof. My parents drove me there from Massachusetts, moved me in,\u00a0bought me a goldfish for company and left the same afternoon. I cried myself to\u00a0sleep. The next morning, I sprinkled some flakes of food into the fishbowl and
started my day with an hour and a half ballet class. Then I changed into my school\u00a0uniform, gray wool culottes and a white blouse, and I went to math and English\u00a0class. After lunch, I took another ballet class followed by science and\u00a0history. It became a familiar routine \u2013 dance, school, dance, school, homework,\u00a0wash out leotards and tights, sew ribbons on pointe shoes, eat and sleep.<\/p>\n
I had my own room in a dormitory type place called McLean
Gardens. Other girls from out of town lived there, too and we had what they\u00a0called \u201ca house mother,\u201d but she didn’t live on site and we barely saw her.\u00a0When I was in dance class or the school room, I was immersed in what I was\u00a0doing and I was fine. Some remarkable things happened there, like Jackie\u00a0Kennedy bringing her daughter Caroline there to take ballet classes once a week.\u00a0We spied on her in an atmosphere charged with learning and creativity, but when\u00a0I got back to my room, the loneliness was staggering. I had no one to help me\u00a0with my homework, no one to hear about my day, no one to laugh with me and no\u00a0one to hold me when I cried.<\/p>\n
I called my parents sobbing a few times and they reminded me that\u00a0I could move back home any time I wanted. They would come and get me, but I\u00a0didn’t want that. My mother had found the school but I was the one who had decided\u00a0to go. I just wanted to cry and follow my dream to be a professional ballet\u00a0dancer since there were no schools for that in my small town in Massachusetts.\u00a0I steeled myself to cope with the loneliness and I worked as hard as any
athlete to become the best. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I continued to train when I moved to New York two years\u00a0later and I got what I wanted. At 16 years old, I became the youngest member of\u00a0the Harkness company. I felt accomplished even after I left the ballet, but the\u00a0depth of loneliness from my youth had been so profound and ingrained, I never\u00a0really got over it. It still creeps, undetected, into my psyche when I\u2019m not\u00a0looking and I\u2019m fourteen all over again, alone, isolated and abandoned.<\/p>\n
The subconscious mind doesn’t know what year it is. Brain loops
that were set in place in adolescence keep looping with no awareness that they\u00a0aren’t relevant any more. I work with them. When my mind spins out of control, I\u00a0remember that I\u2019m an adult now and I have close people who love me and want to help\u00a0me when I need it. I remind myself what year it is. I remind myself how old I\u00a0am and I draw on the inner strength I cultivated as an athlete.<\/p>\n
My personal experiences belong solely to me but my wounding\u00a0is not unique. No matter how dedicated we are to moving on, we all have scars\u00a0that stay with us, painful memories that cause us suffering after they\u2019re long\u00a0gone. It\u2019s part of being human, but so is healing. Our physical bodies are\u00a0built to heal and so are our minds. If we have compassion and patience and take\u00a0the time to listen to ourselves, if we gentle ourselves along and stop beating\u00a0ourselves up, we can heal the most difficult and destructive wounds.<\/p>\n
Covering up scars doesn\u2019t make them go away. Rather it turns\u00a0them into tyrants that hide in the shadows and strike without warning. I\u2019ve
discovered that the more awareness I bring to my memories, the less potent they\u00a0become. The sharp edges of my past pain dissolve when I face them head on and\u00a0the more I treat my myself with kindness, the sooner I find hope and healing.<\/p>\n
Have you ever asked yourself, how old are you?<\/p>\n
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\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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