This week has been so insane it would take me novels to describe it all to you, but here it is in a nutshell:
-I worked for drama/dance/writing program for at risk teen girls where they write, create and perform their own show in just five days.
-My grandmother passed away - and I attended her marathon wake and funeral
-I chopped off all my hair and donated it to Locks for Love
-I did not receive the promotion that I was up for at work
-Subsequently, since there is no room for growth at my current job, I am pretty much planning to leave at the end of the school year. This=Good+Terrifying.
-My skin is launching a rebellion against all of this
On a related note...
I attended a teen poetry reading, part of the JazzMouth Festival accompanied by live musicians including the legendary jazz composer/conductor/multi-instrumentalist David Amram.
He prefaced the event with a short speech that I wish that I could've captured on audio or video to share with you here. His words were too perfect for what I needed to here at that very moment. He said something to the effect of: "When we are children, we are free to create. Children make up songs, plays, games, paintings. And then they grow up, and they stop all that. Why? Because someone said to them "You can't do that!" Well, if everyone listened when someone said "you can't do that!" there would be no musicians, no composers, no artists, no ballerinas, no writers. If you have something to say then you say it! Don't listen to anybody else."
I almost cried when he said all that. That's what has just happened to me. I've been told "NO, you can't do that."
I was very calm when I received the news that the promotion is not mine. I was bursting on the inside, but I calmly said this: "A little over two years ago my husband and I lost our first baby, out of the blue, when I was 35 weeks pregnant. We later found out that the pregnancy could have killed me, because I wasn't on a certain type of medication. This has made me realize that life is too short. Dance is a very ageist industry. You have to be young and skinny and beautiful to be a performer, and a fifty year old man to be an administrator. I knew at eighteen years old when I was in the best shape of my life that I loved performing, but that's not was I was meant to be. I always loved the teaching, the choreographing, the administrative end more. I will never be a fifty-year old man, and I certainly will not wait to be a fifty year old woman to pursue what I know that I'm meant to do. The way I see it, you never know if this day will be your last, and I don't have that kind of time (25 years) to waste. You might not think that I'm ready for this, but I know that I am, and if that means doing the work that I want to do somewhere else, that's what I'll have to do."
So I've been told "no." But I'm not listening, and I'm going to move forward so that I can say what I have to say.
2 comments:
Go you, Sarah! Sometimes it's scary to take a chance and go for it, but you're awesome, and you'll find the place you're supposed to be! Good thoughts your way, dollface! Love ya!
bravo. well said, well done!
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