thought splatter

my life in dance (so far)
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my life in dance (so far)

So, as you have probably heard if you know me, the Owen Sound Dance Academy is celebrating 5 years since I took over in 2017. Wild!

What you may not know is that 2022 also marks 20 years since I started dancing myself. I wanted to avoid making a big fuss about this—I thought, it’s not that special, I started ballet at age 9 which is considered rather late to start dancing, far more talented people younger than me have already passed their 20th year of dance by now. And I have never felt that confident and strong as a dancer in my own right, so it felt kind of silly to celebrate myself when I am so much more proud of my students and their growth, and want to showcase them.

But I have been dancing as long as I can remember—long before I started formal classes. The only reason I started classes “late” was because my parents had to save up for them. We couldn’t afford Preschool Dance when I was 3, no matter how much I begged Santa to make me a ballerina.

I think those years dancing alone in my living room planted a seed for my future love of contemporary dance and improv.

I did not get to try every style of dance growing up, though I wanted to. When I started taking both ballet and highland together at age 12, I paid for the extra classes with babysitting money and asked for dance class funding instead of presents from my family at Christmas.

When Ann Milne took over the studio in 2007, my horizons expanded. It was Ann who asked me to help the Beginner Highland class with their Lilt during highland summer camp 2008, and that fall I started assisting regularly. By the end of that dance season I was teaching that class mostly on my own, and for the rest of high school I assisted and taught every moment I possibly could, and got to try other styles like modern and jazz in exchange. I studied theory and completed my Associates exam for highland in 2009. I lived and breathed the dance studio until I could not imagine a life without dancing, and took my chances applying to only one university, the one that would allow me to pursue a dance degree and an education degree at the same time.

I auditioned and got accepted into the York University Dance program in 2011, along with the concurrent Bachelor of Education program. At the time, I didn’t think I had a future in dance—I finished an entire Bachelor of Fine Arts degree just because my soul needed to be dancing. It was, and is, my life.

Every time I came home, I taught and danced as much as I could at the dance studio, by then called the Owen Sound Academy of Performing Arts. I started teaching ballet and contemporary, bringing back what I learned from the York dance program. After my first year, I came home and did my Members’ exam for highland. I kept competing in highland, I went with the studio to Scotland in 2013 right before my 3rd year of university. Later that year, my world crashed around me when I lost my mom. The day after she passed away, I went to the dance studio because that was my comfort place. Then, for whatever reason, this loss and grief gave me a new perspective and I launched myself with renewed passion into the rest of that year at school, participating in more dance events, going to auditions, and learning how to be more social (I was always very shy!).

I thought I was on a trajectory to become an elementary school teacher—I had known since I was very young, growing up helping the younger students at my mom’s private community school she ran in our home, that I was going to be a teacher. But sometime towards the end of university I started to feel the little sparks of another dream… Every time I went home and taught at the dance studio I thought, if I could ever teach dance full-time and make a living out of it, I would drop everything to do so. But, I thought, what chance would little old me ever have to do something like that?

I graduated from York University in 2016 with my Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance, after 5 years of incredible experiences, learning and growing as a teacher, dancer, and human. I came home and continued to teach as much as I could at the studio, taking over the new Contemporary program started by Helen Jones, one of my teachers from York who continues to be an amazing mentor to this day. I also taught Advanced Ballet and all levels of highland from time to time. I worked at a preschool and started supply teaching at elementary schools. And I pushed away the bleak knowledge that if I got a full-time teaching job, I would have to become less involved with dance.

Then in the winter of 2017, Ann approached me with the chance of a lifetime: she was ready to move on in her career and was looking for someone to take over the studio. It was an easy decision for me. The studio and its dancers were on my mind 24/7, nothing thrilled and inspired me more than when I was in that space teaching and creating, and simply imagining a life without it was heartbreaking. At the same time, it was daunting—terrifying, even! Taking over a business at the age of 24, with the extent of my business experience being a greeting card & craft business I’d played with the year before. And yes, I’d grown and tried to become more confident socially, but I had long suffered from anxiety (undiagnosed at the time) and most of the networking and communication part of the business was fake-it-til-you-make-it for me. My strengths lay in teaching and creating a positive learning environment for kids; that was the one thing I was sure of. But that was all I needed—it made me determined. And with Ann’s guidance and support from my friends and mentors, we successfully transitioned the studio to open as the Owen Sound Dance Academy in the fall of 2017.

And the rest, as they say, is history. I took a business program with the Business Enterprise Centre, I auditioned for the CBTS program with the Royal Academy of Dance in 2017, got accepted and spent the next two years studying alongside running the studio, until I successfully completed the program, which is why the studio is now RAD certified and able to run ballet exams. I put on my first three big shows as director, Curiosity and The Nutcracker in 2018 and Elemental Expressions in 2019. In 2019 the last few dancers from that very first Beginner Highland class I helped way back in 2008, graduated and went off to university, a few of them certified highland teachers themselves by then.

Then the pandemic hit, and I think enough has been said about that. But despite all of the stress and uncertainty, the majority of my incredible dance families stuck through, dancing in whatever way they could and making sure the studio stayed afloat, and we emerged with actually more growth in 2021 than before. Ann’s daughter Maggie Armstrong, who I grew up dancing with at the Owen Sound Academy of Performing Arts, joined our teaching staff in 2020 after graduating from the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. With her training our contemporary dancers blossomed, in and out of lockdowns, through outdoor dance classes and virtual performances. Then with the studio growing so much in 2021 I knew I needed another ballet teacher, and with my apparently incredible luck, Michele Hopkins happened to have just moved to the area, with 25+ years of teaching experience and a teaching philosophy that aligned perfectly with my own. With her training over the past year, our ballet dancers have grown in leaps and bounds.

All of which is to say, yes I have been in the dance world for 20 years as of this year, but my life has been filled with perfect happenstance and luck, and the right people supporting me at the right time, which combined with my all-consuming love for the art of dance, is really what led me to where I am today. In any case, I caved to the demands of my dancers (and my fiancé!) and I will be celebrating this milestone, 20 years of dance along with 5 years of directing the Owen Sound Dance Academy, by dancing alongside my 5+ year contemporary dancers in our end-of-the-year show this coming Saturday. If you are in the audience, I hope you enjoy the piece, and if you are in the show, I hope that you will feel the joy that I feel every day, getting to do what I love with dancers who I love and am so proud of.

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where have i been? a year’s journey in mental health

Hi there.

It’s been a while. Over a year, in fact. But if there’s ever a time to get back to something you’ve been “meaning to do” for ages, it’s now. When the world is in the process of so much change, so much upheaval, and I am one of those lucky ones who can stay home safe with all of this time on my hands. But this post is not about the pandemic.

I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for ages.

The past year since I last wrote on this page has been a year of change and growth for me–growing through crises, growing closer to and further away from people in my life, growing into my own image of myself. And I’m not done yet–not even close. But I’m ready to start talking about it more, I think. This is the beginning of that. And, knowing me, perhaps the only thing I’ll write for many months again! Or perhaps not. I also don’t really have a plan for this post, so if it’s less coherent than usual–well I say that every time I write, don’t I! Let’s just see what happens.

2019 was a bad year for me, but I needed it to move forward.

I once wrote a whole post about how it’s hard to see that you’re in a dark tunnel until you get out of it–or it least, it’s hard to see that there’s light at the end.  I didn’t realize until the end of the year that 2019 was my dark tunnel.  There’s no one reason why 2019 was bad for me–stress and anxiety and old still-not-dealt-with grief and self-doubt piled up and I shoved my feelings aside and pushed through, as usual. But this practice of putting everything else in my life (my work, my projects, my hobbies, my relationship) ahead of my own wellbeing and happiness was bound to catch up with me sometime.

In 2019, I stopped eating healthy. I stopped playing and experimenting with cooking, or even having the energy to cook basic nutritious meals.  Luckily my partner at the time would cook almost every day so as long as he was home and in the mood for cooking, I was fine. But I felt bad for not contributing; I told myself I was lazy. And there were days where all I ate was a can of cold beans and tomato sauce.

In 2019, I exercised only as much as it took to physically teach dance classes; I did nothing on my own, I hardly even went for any walks. I stopped crafting, I struggled to enjoy reading, I struggled to shower regularly. I hardly slept; 5 hours/night became a luxury. I did what was necessary to keep up the illusion that I was okay, and to be able to run my business professionally and not let slip that anything was wrong. Well, I didn’t know anything was wrong! I told myself all of it was my own laziness. Why am I like this now? I would berate myself. I used to be so much better at life.

I called myself annoying and “a disaster human”, told myself I was undeserving of the good things in my life, was wasting all of the incredible luck and privilege and opportunity I had. I thought this was normal and in order to be unselfish I had to treat myself horribly.

I have lived my life in absolute dread of being thought of as selfish.

I was so stressed in the summer of 2019 that my cycles went awry–49 days of period followed by another month of on-and-off. Even when the stress lessened a bit with a very positive start to the studio year in September, I still struggled with all of those other things, and continued to berate myself every day for not having the energy to “be better”. I felt constantly anxious or on the verge of tears, but I didn’t think I deserved to complain about my problems, so I distracted myself with podcasts and games and shows and got annoyed at myself for wasting so much time. I learned what a real full-fledged panic attack felt like–more than once. And I still told myself it was unwarranted.

I got into this weird habit of getting “stuck” at the studio every night after classes. If I ever let myself sit down when all of the kids left–whether on the bench, the stairs, the floor–I would end up sitting there for up to 45 minutes or an hour sometimes, doing absolutely nothing but staring into space and feeling completely drained both physically and emotionally. Keeping up with 4-5 hours of teaching–having to be bright and positive and motivating and “on” as well as on my feet and moving–on very little sleep and not much nutrition–was beginning to grate on me. And I hated that! I love the studio with my whole heart, teaching dance is my passion, why was it suddenly so hard? I must be lazy and stupid and in the wrong career, I told myself.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

What got me through?

Friends. First, my beautiful and beloved irl friends–time spent with them is a scatter of bright spots across 2019 in my head; hiking, long drives, the post-dance show cottage weekend tradition, dancing in front of the Down By The Bay stage at Summerfolk, my town’s tiny Pride parade, long late night video chats with my best friend in New Zealand, spending hours in Elora Gorge until past sunset, crafternoons and ukulele jams and anime binge-watching… and so many hugs, though nobody knew how much I needed them. And then, also, in 2019 I happened to join an online community for my favourite podcast (Friends at the Table) and made some absolutely wonderful online friends from there. Over the year we grew very close, supporting and loving each other through life’s crises and panic and tears.

Dance. There is truly no way to fully explain the degree to which being a dance studio director kept me going through the worst parts of 2019. Having projects and events to work on and look forward to, spending time with all of these wonderful and beautiful and caring and enthusiastic dancers who I love and who love me–teaching, creating together, sharing in the love of this art form!  In 2019 the studio grew again, I completed a ballet teacher training course I’d been working on for two years, I had a clean sweep of highly commended highland exams, I saw my students grow and improve and feel good about their dancing, I put on the show I am most proud of to date. I mentioned earlier that keeping the studio going and keeping up the illusion that I was strong and capable and happy and motivated (being “on” all the time) was starting to wear on me by the end of the year, but it’s also true that the worst anxiety days were always brightened by my hours spent teaching, and knowing that all of these dancers and their families counted on me and believed in me was the number one reason why I got out of bed in the morning. Hands down.

Games. In 2019 I discovered the magical world of tabletop roleplaying games. I joined a community (a sub-set of the fan community mentioned earlier) and fell absolutely in love with this world; I don’t have the words to describe the particular sort of fulfillment that comes from telling stories collaboratively and creatively through roleplaying games. Throughout the year I became more and more involved in the community–I went from dabbling once or twice a month to playing three or four games per week to joining the mod team on the Discord server where the community lives. Not only did it help to distract and bring happiness and social time to my life, but it set me up with another wonderful way to pass all of this time in the new unexpected lifestyle that 2020 has thrust us into.

So I guess what I’m saying is that though 2019 was bad, there really were a lot of good things in it, for which I am so, so grateful.

What got me out?

Pure and simple: I reached out. When all of this culminated in a week of meltdown after meltdown after panic attack, I asked for help. I talked to a mentor who means the world to me, and through that conversation I realized what my friends had been telling me for months; that by putting everything ahead of myself, I was hurting more than just myself, and I was getting very close to burning out completely. December was a month of talking things out, of shifting my life around, of healing and of recognizing the most important thing that I had never realized before: that I am a person just like everyone, and treating myself the way I did in my own brain was not normal and was not healthy.

And then I started going to therapy. About time!

When something hurts, when something is wrong, when you are not happy, don’t tell yourself it’s your fault, don’t tell yourself that talking about it is selfish and attention-seeking and makes you a bad person. Find someone you trust, and talk about it.

2020. 

Obviously, this year has turned out differently than any of us were expecting. But I’ve been venting for over an hour (if you are still reading this, thank you, and wow) and I want to finish by sharing some positive things that have happened this year.

Friends: Despite being physically apart from my friends now, in some ways I feel closer to them than ever. One of my friends and I started doing monthly phone calls in January and haven’t lost our streak yet. Some of my friends and I have connected through group calls playing Jackbox games or Animal Crossing or baking cupcakes in our own separate kitchens. My best friend in New Zealand and I have done more video calls than usual and started watching movies together that way. My best friend in Utah and I have a new routine of early morning calls which help both of us get up early and start the day on a positive note. Two of my other very close friends and I have started having important conversations about how we can make our friendship better and healthier. And I have to mention my roommate, who is also one of my very best friends, and everything that we have been through together this year as well as working through how to be good friends and good roommates at the same time! Haha.  And I’ve made new friends too, new friends who fill my heart with love and joy, like my friend who I spent my birthday weekend in Toronto with! I am constantly, to be honest, quite overwhelmed with love for my friends and gratitude for my good fortune in having them a part of my life.

Games: I just want to give a quick shoutout again to this community of tabletop roleplaying games; my love for it has not dwindled at all this year! One of the highlights of 2020 so far was when our server ran a 72 hour livestream charity event in March–being a part of that was absolutely incredible! (If you’re curious, all of the games are available to watch on the server’s YouTube channel; I’m in games 5, 10, and 15. just a lil plug..)

Dance!! This year was supposed to be a very exciting year for the studio–I was working on a show that was filled with some of the most creative choreography I’ve ever done; I saw dancers growing with leaps and bounds; all of my ballet dancers were getting close to being fully prepared for RAD exams; we had the most turn out at a Parents’ Association meeting that we’ve had in years; and I started dancing a lot more myself as well, with solo practice and regular practice with a dear friend. And even now during quarantine–I’ve been teaching online classes (the support and encouragement from my dance families has been incredible!), working on a studio video project (coming out in June, fingers crossed!), and taking dance classes myself, often two or three times a week. The dance community is amazing: so many companies and individual dancers offering free classes over Instagram Live or YouTube; plus my favourite ballet teacher from university has been teaching weekly online classes in collaboration with my favourite accompanist, which has been so wonderful to take part in. Of course I can’t wait to get back into the studio with all of my wonderful dancers who I miss so much, but I’m glad that dance is still very much in my life even now.

Therapy: Okay, I know this post is going on and on and on, I promise I’m wrapping it up. But I can’t leave without mentioning that yes! Everyone was right! Therapy is so, so good and important, and everyone should go. It took me years to finally get there, but thank goodness. I have a wonderful therapist and I have been learning so much about why my brain works the way it does, and how to navigate my own thoughts and feelings, as well as being validated in the things I doubted and learning to see myself as a person who deserves better than what I was giving myself. Maybe I’ll write another post more about that specific aspect later, because there’s definitely more I have to say about it…

But for now, I have definitely written enough and I will be very surprised if anyone made it this far! Clearly I have been missing this and I shouldn’t leave it for so long… let’s keep this writing thing up, shall we? In the meantime… stay safe & stay connected! And be sure to get lots of fresh air.

I’ll be back soon this time, for sure. 🌼

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a little help remembering

Five years ago I had this idea for sometime in the future if I ever got a tattoo.  I didn’t know if it was anything I’d ever go through with.  It’s a bit of a scary thing.  It’s also a thing that a lot of people have opinions about, and I still haven’t gotten over worrying about what people think of me.  For some reason, a month or so ago, I finally decided to do it… and I booked the appointment.  And today…

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by @gianinatattooer (on insta) at Ink & Water

… well, today has been a rollercoaster of emotions. I’ve been panicking a bit the past few days, despite the fact that I’ve been thinking about this tattoo for 5 years and preparing myself for a month. But I realized this morning that the thing I’m worried about isn’t the tattoo–it’s my fear of other people thinking it’s stupid because it’s so basic and people don’t know the meaning behind it.  So here is the meaning behind it.

It’s the words my mom and I used to say to each other before bed every night. It’s the last thing I said to her on the phone, the night before she died. I look at it, and I can almost imagine her voice saying the words.

The past few hours since I got it I’ve been so so happy, and also a little giddy . First-tattoo-adrenaline, I guess. But a few minutes ago I just looked at it and realized that every time I look at my wrist for the rest of my life, I’m going to think of my mom.

And that’s exactly the point, that’s exactly why I wanted this–the past 2 years especially I’ve been scared of forgetting because of how much less often I think about her. The worst part of grief, for me, is the forgetting.

So if I can look at these words, and almost find her voice in my head again… maybe I shouldn’t worry what anybody else thinks.  This realization, that these words are going to remind me of my mom every day, is emotional… but it’s a good emotion.

I need a little help remembering…

it’s just going to take some getting used to.

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shift

Today I learned that a complete reversal of mood can be achieved through the slightest shift in perspective.

I’m going to be perfectly honest and say that although I’ve attempted to put up a facade for the sake of friends, teachers, and classmates this week, I’ve really been stuck in a pit of melancholy since Sunday.  I’ve had this familiar ache in my chest and this lack of motivation to do anything, not just work, but even the things I usually do to avoid work (watch YouTube videos, listen to music, eat, read).  I was in a place where I’d have been content to lie on my bed staring at the ceiling for hours at a time.

I didn’t do that, of course.  I’m in school and I have responsibilities that I was able to force myself to do, but I wasn’t able to put any heart into it (the math lesson I tried to teach at placement yesterday, for example, was a complete disaster).

I kept saying to myself (and to others) “I don’t know why this is happening, I don’t know why I feel this way, I don’t know what to do to fix it”.  I’ve been overwhelmed and under-motivated for little reason that I can see.  I’ve cried four times this week without knowing why.  I tried to cheer myself up by dancing, talking to friends, reading, journalling, looking through my #happythings tag on tumblr; but these things were only momentary relief, a brittle shell between me and the all-consuming ball of emptiness/hopelessness/anxiety/self-hate that was just sitting in my chest all week.

Until this morning, when I went to my second ever class for Teaching Health and Physical Education in the Primary-Junior Division (these ed people and their long course titles, I know!).  We played some excellent games in the gym and then took in lots of useful information in the classroom–but it wasn’t the content of the class that pulled me out of that pit of melancholy.  If fun class content was the solution, I would have been cured on Wednesday, when we went outside and played in the sunshine for Celtic Ensemble, or last night, when we spent several hours singing and making music in Teaching Music in the Elementary Classroom.

No, all that happened this morning was that my prof mentioned that Health and Phys-Ed teachers are in high demand in Ontario right now, and I realized that I would actually really love to be an HPE teacher.  That simple idea opened a door for me, a door to a path I’d never even considered.  And it’s not even that I want to do that more than be a core teacher or a teacher-librarian or a music teacher or any of the other possibilities I’ve imagined over the years.  It was just the thought, the tiniest shift in perspective as to where my life can go from here, that acted as a spark to make my mood skyrocket.  I’m excited about teaching again.  I’m excited about life again.

I’ve experienced this before: being in a gross, frustrating, confusing place, mentally and emotionally, and then having one tiny, brilliant idea, the slightest shift in perspective, that brings me back into a happy, enthusiastic, productive place.  The problem with this is that it’s impossible to make it happen.  It’s always something unexpected, almost random, that lifts me out of the melancholy.  It’s wonderful when it happens, but very hard to imagine when you’re stuck in that place.  Like yeah, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but you’re blindfolded, so you won’t know you can get out until you are out.

I don’t know if this is a normal thing.  I don’t know if I should be worried about getting stuck in pits of melancholy, if it’s an actual mental health issue, or if this is just a thing that everyone deals with and I should just suck it up, learn to live with it, and be happy when it’s over.  I’m afraid to ask because I feel like I’m taking attention away from people with real, chronic, diagnosed mental illnesses.  I don’t know if what I feel is valid.  And maybe I’m also afraid of getting confirmation that no, this is not a real issue, I’m actually just lazy and needy and not very good at being a person.

This post went somewhere I didn’t expect.  I should have maybe ended on a happy note–especially because I’m quite happy at the moment!  Sometimes my thoughts and fingers just get carried away.  I guess you can take this thought-splatter and do with it what you will.

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There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes you can’t see it. Sometimes you’re blindfolded. But then a slight shift: the blindfold slips… and you know where you’re going again.