WHAT!? It's OVER??!

Blast.

I really did have a wonderful, fabulous, thrilling time at the KDA Dance show. The first night was OK, and I didn't have many MAJOR screw-ups. The second night I killed the Fantasia dance where I'm the ostrich and I just had as much fun as I could wearing the tutu. I made a bunch of blunders in the Masquerade dance, which apparently my parents didn't notice, but dad brought a video camera, and is zoomed in on me right as I'm making all of my mistakes...*sigh*

And I made sure to plow over all the bitches who might have been in my way when I wanted to wear my tutu for our bows. Actually, nobody tried to take me on, but in my mind I would have fought them. I wanted to wear that thing for as long as I could.

So the show, in general, went great. Everyone was fabulous and although the audience was less than exciting, all of the dancers were buzzing and offered oodles of support.

We did our bows, and clapped for our fellow dancers as they came on stage. Then we all sat down on the stage and watched the slide show with the audience that had been created for KDA's 25th anniversary. I'd seen it before - the night previous. But at that moment I just felt like: here I am, sitting in my tutu, surrounded by all of these people that are wonderful, and who care so much about dance. These people are all going to come back next year and dance and be beautiful andbe the "dance family" that KDA is, that I love. But I won't be part of that..."

And that's when it really hit me that I wasn't going to be back. That I wasn't going to be part of that buzzing atmosphere, or the ferociously humid backstage, or the endless supply of glitter, or the costumes...There I was sitting in my tutu on stage, and I'd probably never do that again. I pretty much bawled. The only thing I had going for me in that moment was that because it was so damn hot backstage, some people commented on how it looked like I was so sweaty because my face was glistening. It wasn't sweat. Thank the Lord for a good friend nearby and my stupidly non-running mascara.

Maybe I'll dance again. There are tons of places all over that have dance schools, of course. Maybe one day I'll even be back to KDA...a few years from now. I draw inspiration from some of the other ladies who dance when I see that now they have kids, they come to class alongside their little girls and I hope that I'll get to dance again. But maybe I won't. I've notoriouslt been the oldest girl in my ballet classes - a 23 year old dancing with the 13 year old girls...When I started ballet I was in highschool and it wasn't so bad to be melded. But I would wonder about joining a new class with younger girls that I haven't danced with before....6 years before...

But I still love dance. I'll get it in there somehow, I think.