Of old wounds, healing (or not), and looking back on the past...

Clearly an introspective sort of night, based on the post title...

I've been writing about my history tonight to someone who doesn't know me all that well. We're getting to know each other and she asked me about my dance background. So I started writing to her about the 13 years I spent with my first ballet teacher, and all of a sudden it wasn't reading like a "getting to know you" letter, it was reading like a journal entry, and not a happy one.

I like to think of myself as a reasonably healthy person when it comes to emotional stuff. Enough time has passed and I'm far enough away from the person I was in high school that it's easy for me to forget about or overlook. Which is funny, because don't our experiences -no matter how distant- make us who we are?

As I wrote the email I relived some experiences that I would rather not have remembered. I've referred to them in passing to my friends, but tonight I really felt them again. There was the feeling of being trapped, of hating myself for not being "strong enough" to handle "being a dancer," but feeling like it was the only thing I was meant to do -the ultimate rock and hard place scenario. I remember the feelings of hopelessness as the minutes ticked by every day and I didn't know when I would be allowed to leave the studio -but what did it matter, I would be back the next day whether I liked it or not.

I remember slapping myself across the face as hard as I could because my traitor eyes wouldn't stop crying. I remember anguished glances out the window wondering when my mom would get there...although when she did finally arrive it didn't matter because we weren't allowed to leave until the teacher said we could (my mom often waited for hours -my poor little brother was left home alone). I remember being screamed at, snapped at, degraded, and downtrodden, and when I cried I remember being told that I was oversensitive and that "this is the way the dance world is." And I had to be a dancer...only now that I look back I can't remember why I thought that or how I came to believe it when I had so many other, healthier interests that were going unexplored.

And even now, as I go through these memories, I can't help thinking "Shut up. Stop talking about it. No one wants to hear it. They've all heard it a million times. You can't use these experiences as an excuse for whatever issues you have now -get over it." But is that really true?

I was a victim of abuse. It may not have left physical scars, but it sure as hell left its mark on my mind and heart. I've been chugging along not thinking about it for a while now, but the feelings these memories have brought up makes me think that "not thinking about it" isn't necessarily the healthiest thing I can do.

Maybe it's time to stop. Maybe it's time to embrace these experiences as part of me and try to move forward without shutting that part of myself off. Is it possible to embrace being broken? We struggle so hard to feel whole...

I don't know what else to say tonight -this is just what's on my mind. I think maybe my search for self-expression is taking me back to a search for self -and this is just part of the process. Like I can't move forward until I accept that scared, broken, hopeless little girl back into my heart and claim her experiences as my own. *I* am *her* -or at least I was.

Thanks for listening.