Starry Night Thoughts

Remember when the reason wasn't clear?

I think I figured it out.

Funny words to start off a chapter to a book I technically shouldn't be writing in until August strikes because school is a killer, I've been MIA, and have other "duties" on here to do first before writing this (long sentence to start it off as well), but I think at least part of the reason is known to me now.

A few months ago--around the April/May/June/July time in 2017, actually-- I posted a chapter on here called "When things don't go your way." Long story short, for those who are checking this out and haven't read it/have forgotten, I wasn't accepted into a ballet company after being willing to drop everything I do for it. A few days later, the realization hit me that this was actually a good thing, because it meant I could continue doing what I love to do. At that time, it was solely church band I had left.

Fast forward to... September(?) I think, and through certain events that there will probably be a chapter on later, I quit dance. To sum up it up quickly and understandably: politics in sports.

For this story to make sense, I have to tell you what I did before ballet was my only activity. For fifteen years now, I have been (and always will be) a figure skater. It's what I've done since I was little and at this point, it's in my blood.

The problem with ice skating is the need for an ice rink, which my city decided it didn't need anymore before the whole drama with ballet started. When it closed, I was actually focusing on skating and not doing much dance at all. Travel was all too real for me, as I had to travel to get lessons, and now, travel to simply practice, which dropped from three to four days a week to two--if luck was on my side.

My coach, at that time, decided I wasn't as serious as a few of his other students purely because he didn't see me that much and then changed the lesson to a different day, wouldn't teach anything but a few certain elements, and became somewhat aloof (I guess) toward me. To top it off, my right knee finally decided it had enough of the constant falling and quit on me.

End of lessons. End of skating.

For two years.

Back to ballet:

I'd recently stopped. I had no sports, no activities, no nothing, really. Then, a friend got me involved in an amazing youth group (another story, another day) and I started playing keyboard with them and actually enjoying myself instead of stressing of who was doing what. I started doing a crazy amount of school--easily three times the amount I was doing (yay high school+college), but getting ahead as I was doing this.

I was, crazily enough, caught up on everything.

Cue November.

Somehow, somewhere, people who have obviously never been to the city I'm in brought in a seasonal rink. Like, ICE rink. It was much smaller than normal (it was actually not even a third the size of a standard rink), the ice resurfacing consisted of a guy with a hose and a guy with a couple towels strapped to a golf cart, but dang it, it was ice.

And outside.

So, like any good skater who is desperate to skate, I started going there.

It was about four times a week, going there.

And staying until the crowd got so unbearable I had to leave.

But, oh, how I loved it.

It's easy to forget, when people have ruined something for you, how much you really like it when they're not there.

There'd have been no way to go if ballet was still happening. No. Way.

At the beginning of January, I started regularly skating again.

Travel still happens. There's no skating without travel.

The best part is the way I ensured myself weekly ice time. (The ballet teachers would have a stroke if they heard this).

HOCKEY.

On a trip in December, I suggested a family member and I start up hockey. It was different, it didn't envolve the skating people, it'd be fun.

So we did.

Been doing it since.

Figure skating still happens too. On the days that there's hockey, we get there early for the ice sessions before and skate with the toepick skates, then do a quick change when hockey starts and try not to die on the never-ending blades (ever fallen on hockey skates? They feel like they never end until you're face is on the ground. I know this from experience).

The absense of ballet has given me so much. In the empty space between ballet and hockey/skating, I practiced music more that it is probably recommended and have found what I'd like is to study it for a degree in school. Speaking of school, I'm about to graduate two different things at the same time and will be ahead of my grade year. I have a goal in skating to (a) do it because I love it and (b) eventually teach figure skating and hockey.

Can I say these good times will end? The pessimist in me says "oh yeah." There are so many times coolness has gone sour...

But as long as hockey, skating, and music don't become what they have before, I know the reason I didn't get into company. I know the reason stuff happened and I quit.

God has a plan. I'm still not seeing this full plan. Maybe the plan is about to go through a valley. But there will be those valleys in life and there will be hills which follow. My life sure as heck isn't perfect--if it ever gets that way, I'll be waiting for the guy in the wings who's holding a sledgehammer--but the funny thing is that it's not supposed to be. If it was perfect, I'd never learn what I know now. I wouldn't be me.

I'll end this before the rambling starts. Besides, that paper won't write itself and, well, the device I'm currently using is on it's last dregs of life.

But there are reasons.

Ok, I really need to leave. To quote Alien:

--This is Ripley, the last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.