The House That Built Me

Last night I sat on the comfy brown couches of Crawford Falls 222 and watched a heaping dose of trashy reality TV. This is a normal evening for me these days. My bank account does not permit a lot of social drinking (unless of course, I'm feeling on my game and can find boys to buy them for me). My bank account does not permit much eating, either. I just finished my last jar of peanut butter and last two slices of bread today. Now what? But I'm also the idiot who bought a really cute $20 shirt at Target last week to wear to my interview tomorrow. Perhaps this lack of ca$h will help me lose more of my ItalyPastaPudge. I never thought I would be living a life of poverty in a luxury student condo. But I get paid two weeks from today! And then it's time to shop and eat and drink like a queen. 

I just got incredibly off-track. Back to the trashy reality TV I was watching. There's a new series on Lifetime called Dance Moms. Seeing as my mother and best friend's mother used to be the self-proclaimed Queen Bee's of the Dance Expression Dance Moms, this was a must-watch. And while hilarity ensued throughout the show with Mom quotes like "If Vivi tells me she wants to play softball, I'll probably slit my wrists," and "Your legs are as straight as Elton John," I still couldn't help but be disgusted by premise of it. Not the show, the studio. The psychotic woman who runs it and the psychotic mothers who put their daughters through it. 

It got me thinking about how much my dance experience shaped me as a person. I tried to go to sleep, but found myself watching old dance DVDs until 2 o'clock in the morning, even though I had an interview at 8:15 a.m. in Greenville this morning. But I didn't feel tired when I woke up, I felt refreshed. I felt like I finally reminded myself of what I forget far too often. That I owe a tremendous part of who I am to my dance teachers and sisters. 

Dance Expression is the most incredible place a child can grow up. I know everyone wants to believe that their experiences are far more unique than the rest, but I know there isn't a chance in the world that any studio can do what Dance Expression does. It is based off a foundation of love, support, self-esteem, discipline, confidence, togetherness, and joy. There are no auditions. There are no required tricks you need to be capable of or size costume you need to fit into. To you, this might sound like some kind of crazy, unorganized circus of dancers. But somehow, despite the incredible diversity present in both personality and talent, it works. Sure, our dances were never sprinkled with back flips or twenty people doing fuetes in unison. And sometimes we came home from competitions without any top-tier awards. But sometimes we did. And sometimes we came out on top of studios who did have twenty dancers doing fuetes in unison. And that's because judges recognized something different in us...love. We actually loved what we were dancing about and who we were dancing with. Every dance had a story to it. It was embedded into our brains at a young age that we did not go to competitions to compete, we went because they gave us more opportunities to share our joy on stage. It was incredible to watch those other companies full of competitive rhinestoned robots cry hysterically when they won 1st place (or when they didn't). We were artists.We were always different. And we liked it that way. 

It's hard to recognize a uniqueness like this when you're young. Dance Expression was all I had ever known. While many of my closest friends came from other dance studios where the teachers treated them badly or the Moms were catty, I didn't know a world existed outside of those purple walls. It wasn't until after I graduated that I realized all of this. After I stood on stage, got my flowers from Miss Lisa, gave a tearful and incomprehensible speech, and hugged and hugged my sisters repeatedly. That's when I realized how much of myself I owed to that studio. That's when I realized why my Mom paid for it for 15 years, even if it meant we never had new cars or an addition put on our house. I grew up there. And even though I would spend hours each week suffering through middle school with frizzy hair braces, I went home every night to a place that told me I was important. And then I spent four years of high school surrounded by drug addicts and townies, but I didn't even notice. Because after school I went home to a place that told me I could be anything I wanted. I was blissfully oblivious to the world around me. 

And that's how I've found myself here. On a internship-applying, company-researching, rest-of-my-life-planning frenzy 800 miles from New Jersey. And even though Clemson is my home now, I still think of that studio every time I hear "The House That Built Me." Had Miss Lisa not disciplined me about my turnout, I might not have the self-discipline to work so hard in college. If no one had joked about my in-proportionately sized hips, I might not have the easy nature of laughing at myself. If I had never been Annie, I might not be busting out incredible renditions of "I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here" when I'm at parties...perhaps I could do without that last one. 

It's an incredible thing to have. Especially for someone like me, who up and left New Jersey with no intentions of ever going back. Most of my high school friends have definitely forgotten about me. I've made a new life for myself. But despite all of that, I could still fly home, walk into that dance studio, and have open arms and a group of future-bridesmaids waiting for me.