Dancing on Stars

     As you may, or may not, have noticed from my little We Heart It widget, I have found a new obsession.  Ballet. When I was little I had always dreamed of becoming a ballerina.  The grace, the poise, the beauty.  It was, I'll admit, extremely appealing to 5 year old me.  Or even more, the idea that perfection resided only in those who could stand, daintily perched on their toes.  Sometimes when looking at the pictures or watching an actual performance those feelings creep back into me and I have this terrible feeling deep in the pit of my soul.  Regret.
     You see I begged my mother for months on end to be able to take ballet classes and, after a few weeks of constant pestering, she relented and took me to a dance studio. To say I was entranced by the dancing girls and the wall of mirrors would be a severe understatement.  I ached to be a part of it, a part of the beauty and seemingly sheer perfection.  Then this world I had built up around ballet came crashing down around me.  Shards of my dream fell on me, like tiny stars, burning my imagination.  5 year old me did not like this.  We were told that it would be no problem for me to do ballet, as long as I took tap lessons along side it.  This simple request, this easy addition disgusted me.  In my mind ballet was the incarnation of beauty and grace whereas tap was the exact opposite.  I saw it as loud, obnoxious and flawed.
     My mom tried to convince me that it was fun and I would enjoy it.  This was unacceptable.  I told her over and over again that I didn't care "it's not all that cool anyways".  Finally she gave up and so did I.  The dream of being one of those girls who danced on stars had been stained, somehow it seemed less beautiful to me.
     That was until the beginning of 8th grade when we had POP day, or, People of Prominence.  We were told that we needed to find a person who had made some sort of contribution to the world and "become" them.  We spent weeks writing and memorizing a speech written in the first person pov of our subject.  I chose Anna Pavlova.  She was a famous Ballerina and after scanning tirelessly through pictures of her dancing, the spark of my old dream reemerged.

     Then again, quite recently when I was looking at pictures of ballet dancers.  Suddenly I saw it again.  The same picture that my young mind had conjured up, except more precise and perhaps even more beautiful than before.

     The last two and the first one would have to be my favorites.  But all the same, I cannot help but to feel a deep seeded feeling of regret.  I should have tried tap, the truth is: I probably would have loved it, tap is geared towards the sharpness and precision where as ballet is more about the body control and the careful blend between grace and not breaking your ankles. It really is sad to know that the opportunity was there, and I pushed it away.  Now, it's far too late to try and learn, it's just one of those things that you have to start young or, well, you just give up on it.  I wonder if perhaps anyone else has done something like I did, give up on a dream you had when you were young, or give up an opportunity that you regret? My hope of dancing was permanently shattered, the pieces are too small, and I am to old, to try to reassemble it.  But, that doesn't mean that I don't still dream when ever I look at the pictures.