welcome, twenty-ten!

as this year and every other year comes to a close everyone seems to be turning towards their respective internet network of choice to recap on what they have become/accomplished/seen/etc. in the past 365 days. but 2009 is a bit different seeing as we are about to turn into a brand spanking new decade! it has been an overwhelmingly abundant 10 years for me, as well as the rest of the world. i was 10 years old when the ball dropped into midnight of january 1, 2000. i was in the fifth grade at old spanish fort christian school. i believe that was the year i discovered people make religion unbearable and i no longer needed an institution to tell me how my god works. that was my first year at a brand new school in a brand new city, daphne, alabama. i hated daphne with every fiber of my being. i went to two more schools while there and realized even further how difficult the human race can be. i also became a ballerina suprima in those years. i danced in several nutcrackers and cinderellas and what nots. i got my first pair of pointe shoes. i narrowly understood what was unfolding as i heard sirens screaming off the television as two buildings collapsed from an american sky. i heard the cries of a wounded yet stronger than ever society who was ready to show the world what they were made of. i lost a beloved grandfather. in 2003 i moved back to my hometown of birmingham and met my safe haven, the alabama school of fine arts. i grew up in those halls in so many respects. i made true friends. i became my own person. i became a better dancer yet lost my love of those pointe shoes. i got a boy to like me back and subsequently fell in love. i learned how to drive in a bright red f-150 in the developing backstreets of wesley chapel, florida. i experienced my first rocky horror picture show. i met my first car and gave someone else the privledge of naming her. i saw new york city for the first and second time and solidified my long time dream of living in that world. i saw canada and i saw six more states in the U.S. i got my heart broken and i lost one of my best friends to old age. i dated. i went to three proms. i had my first tastes of alcohol and never found anything better than the whiskey i would get from my dad when i was sick. i saw the U.K. i auditioned for juilliard wearing ballet shoes 3 or 4 sizes too large. i choreographed my first piece and it was about robots. i got accepted into the university of south florida and i finally graduated high school. my sister got married. i said good bye to all of this build up and began a new life further south. i acquainted myself with tampa, clearwater, st. petersburg and ybor city. i cried after my first day in college and didn't know why. i missed familiar faces, cold weather and the birmingham skyline. i had a seizure and was faced with a diagnosis i never saw coming, epilepsy. i lost the ability to drive for six months and moved into my first dorm room. there, i realized that i could actually enjoy and understand the appeals of university life. there, i fell in love again. i met many consequenses of my flippancy and lost many connections along the way. i went to my first usf football game in auburn, alabama and gloated in victory when the bulls closely defeated those damn tigers i had heard about my entire life. i became accustomed to the ways of the mosh pit. i met coheed and cambria and against me!. i tried out for the dance team. i read a book about bill t. jones. i was a sylphide for a night or two and pushed a piano on stage in front of an audience. i "found" modern dance. i learned a dance community did not have to be vicious and self-serving. i lost two of my dancing sisters due to circumstances that were to my eyes horrific and unfair. i moved into my first apartment. i attended the biggest audition of my life and screamed for joy for the first time in my life when i made the cut. i went to africa and learned the truth in the statement that dancing is indeed a universal language. i swam in the mediterranean in the middle of the night. and i plan on doing it again in 2010. 10 years ago, i was young and yet today i feel even younger. through all of this shifting and maneuvering i've learned that this life is a pretty big one, no matter what its length. the world is far too enormous for a life to become stale and uninteresting. to some people, 10 years may seem tiny and insignificant, and i suppose in the grand scheme of things it is. but i'm not going to let myself think that way. may the next 10 be just as magnificent and unforseeable!