This blog is not really a truth of my life any longer but it is still a place for me to write so maybe I'll revamp it to be "valid" or maybe I won't? Maybe it will just be a place where my old thoughts and memories lay and I can revisit those times if I please. It is a bit eery looking back on some of these posts. It feels like a weird kind of porthole back in to my head.
With each new day of this adventure I am beginning to see the shifts and changes of what this might be exactly about. I went into this thing not knowing what I was really doing with myself but instead following an intuition. I knew there were many reasons for me to make drastic changes in my life but I couldn’t put a finger on any single one of them. It was as if I was not able to see things. Day by day, month by month I was finding myself turning in to a deeper and darker human. And with time I felt like I completely lost a sense of self. I was no longer me. I was no longer the Jordan people knew. I was no longer the Jordan I used to know. I was angry. I was depressed. I was unstable mentally and emotionally. I was so unhappy. I was so unhappy with my life. And it took several beatings from what felt like the world for me to finally break. I felt like the world was going against me. I felt like my luck was turned and I was somehow taking on all of these bad energies and I couldn’t get myself away from them. I felt like I was climbing a mountain and a boulder would hit me and send me tumbling back down to the bottom and I would pick myself up and climb the mountain again until I got hit by a second boulder, and a third and a forth and then finally... I broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take the set backs any longer. I couldn’t take being unhappy. I couldn’t be the Jordan I didn’t know anymore. So I quit. I quit my job because it wasn’t worth it anymore. The heartache, the struggle, the dread, the abuse was not worth it anymore. I was so far gone that something this dramatic really had no consequence to me. I could not have cared less. I just wanted to be through. Whatever hard times were ahead, I would figure them out. I just knew I would. On my 25th birthday I decided I could never go back. I knew I could never go back to work and I was even unsure of whether I could ever dance again. I wasn’t sure if it was the art form that just wasn’t right for me any longer or if it was the environment. The day I made my final decision I wondered if I would be alright. How am I going to do this, WHAT am I going to do? Pilates? School? Sew? What would it be? How will I live? But in all of those questions I never felt completely lost. I always felt like there was someone there. The moment I would begin to feel doubt or worry something would happen to bring me up. A reassurance of some sort. Like an offer from an open class to be a part of an upcoming production that would pay $3000. Or a bulk order from my leotard company that would earn me $2000. I began to realize that everything was going to be okay as long as I kept my head up and stayed positive and was listening to myself and what I needed. Where was I hurt? What needed to be healed? Overtime I realized that I did indeed want to dance still. I just needed to heal my heart and my love for ballet from the root. Why did I even dance? It was a feeling. It was a love. It was something that was for me and my soul. I needed to find that love and bring it back. The next couple months were not easy but it was a time where I had to spend A LOT of time in the studio alone. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done. I had to approach the inner demons that I have been fighting because of the environmental stress that was put on me for the past 7 years. In two months I was not able to obviously heal fully but I made some major progress. There were times that were extremely hard to walk in to the studio and give myself class but I knew that I had a goal that I was working towards and that was to audition in New York for as many companies as I could. Put myself out there again and see what happens. I really had nothing to lose but everything to gain. The day before I left for New York I got a random text stating that there was a possibility there was need for dancers in a company in NYC. I showed up to the rehearsal after a ridiculous day of travel and immediately began learning choreography. I came back the following day and then the day after and then I was asked to stay and be a dancer with the company. It all happened so fast that I can only look back on it now and realize what an amazing thing had happened to me. My stars were finally aligning and my energies were finally turning. With each day something brilliant happens and I honestly think it is because I finally opened the doors to let it all in. I am finally getting back to me and clearing my conscience. I spent so many years shutting myself off and being dishonest with myself and others. So much so that I was lost. I felt lonely and felt that I had no friends and it was all because of a mindset. Each day seems a little brighter and my heart feels a little lighter with it. There is a long way I need to go and there is a lot I need to sort out, but the most important thing is there is progress. And progress feels good.
The thing that led me to write today was a certain “wrong” turn that ultimately was so “right”. I took an odd train after work and I realized shortly after boarding that it was the wrong train. I got off the train a good 15 blocks from my apartment and was so tired after not only a long day, but a long week. I didn’t feel like I had the energy to walk in the gloom. After stomping up the stairs it took me a few blocks to start realizing and taking in how beautiful it was. There was a mist over central park that was so beautiful and calming. It felt quite in the city.. a very rare feeling. I felt alone with my thoughts and it was extremely cathartic. 8 blocks later I arrived at the most beautiful cathedral and initially walked right passed it. I stopped and turned around and went back because the door caught my eye. I stood and starred at the door for a few minutes and took a picture and then I began to look at the structure and how unbelievable it was. So ornate, so intricate. Displayed on one of the sides of the cathedral was the quote “Freedom of the mind is the beginning of all freedoms”. It rang in my head the entire way home. Sometimes taking the wrong turn is exactly what one needs at the end of a hard week. You never know where it is going to take you and what you will get out of it.
