CBT

I am so worn out.  I have decent posts floating through my head, but I can't ever remember them.  I can write the whole thing out in head and it will be awesome, but as soon as I sit down to write it, it's gone.  Oh well.  I know I promised you old photos a while ago.  Perhaps those of you who could possibly be embarrassed by them thought I'd forgotten.  You thought so in vain.  I thought I'd start with this one since we just had Halloween:

This was Halloween 1993 and these girls were my lifeblood through my adolescent years.  (I should scan the back of the photo so you can see my silly 12 year old penmanship.  Ha ha!)  These are the girls of Children's Ballet Theatre.  We were all pretty tight.  Because of them I had friends who understood me.  We did so much together.  Parties, camps, performances.  We all got slightly obsessed with "The Phantom of the Opera".  (Some of us more obsessed than others.)  I danced with them until I got into high school.  I can't remember the reason I gave my mom why I wanted to quit.  I was tired of the drive (30 minutes one way), I wanted to do other things at school, I hated it.  All likely reasons I could have given her, but the real reason was things had started to change once the bulk of us got into high school.  They all started having lives outside of ballet that I wasn't part of and that hurt my feelings.  The nerve, huh?  But they were my friends.  I didn't have a particular group of friends in school.  I bounced around a lot and eventually ended up sans clique in my senior year.  I was starting to feel left out and alone, and that scared me, so I decided to cut and run before it got worse.  But it was my life.  It really was.  I felt fulfilled there and loved and accepted.  I felt like I was actually good at something.  When I quit I didn't realize it wouldn't be a clean break.  It still haunts me unexpectedly.  While I was at CBT we were invited to dance the part of the angels when Utah Opera did "Hansel & Gretel".  Utah Opera did it for four years and I was in it every year.  I loved it.  I loved it so much that when Utah Opera performed it again five or six years ago (with CBT dancers as the angels) I went to see it and as soon as that angel music came on I burst into tears.  I sobbed through the entire angel part, and I really mean sobbed.  I missed it so much.  I was shocked at the rawness of those emotions.   I still am, but like I said, it was my life.  My safe haven.  Most of my happiness from that time in my life came from being a part of CBT and I hadn't found anything to replace it when I went to see them dance again.  

Anyway, that went in a totally different direction than I thought it would.  I've been able to reconnect with a few of those girls recently.  Trisha (the Wicked Witch of the West on the bottom left) still teaches at CBT.  It's been fun to get to know her again.  And Annie H. (top left in the hat, what were you?) and StevieAnn (next to Annie H., she was a monster of some sort) were my BFFs.  Annie H. and I have randomly reconnected throughout the years but we have permanently reconnected recently and just last week I heard from StevieAnn.  It's really strange stepping back into that world at work, to watch these girls have similar experiences to mine.  I hope they know how lucky they are.  I hope they love every minute of it.