Friday, August 21, 2015

two become two and i thirty

i know my instagram feed looks like an incredibly effortless dream. smiles, cute children, handsome husband and red-lipped me always captured in a perfect moment. but my entire day is not made up of perfect smiley moments. i choose those photographs, i choose those filters, i choose to post those moments of my day. why? because when i scroll back i want to remember those wonderful moments of when we were all laughing till our sides ached and when my little babies were so so happy i could cry.

now that i am dancing 'properly' meaning i attend workshops, facilitate workshops, perform, attend performances, etc it all makes my so-called perfect life even more 'perfect' doesn't it? i feel the envy, i hear the jealousy and i know what you are thinking because i was in fact you.

i used to feel a tight knot in my tummy everytime i came across a magazine article about someone i knew. the knot was jealousy of course and the only way to react was to make an excuse. people used to say...but you just had twins how will you be able to do it? heck, i used to say...i just had twins, how will i be able to do it? then one day i decided to just shut up and just do.

my husband was a strong factor in this because he kept telling me to stop living in my past glories, which to be honest i really was. but there was also this fear of not living up to those so-called past glories. what if what people remembered was magnified in their heads? what if they saw me again and thought, hmmm...i thought she was better? what if people thought, oh dear i think she's lost it. so many what ifs...so i flushed those what ifs down the toilet and started. i started exercising, i started dancing again.

a year has passed and i would never have imagined this year to have turned out the way it has. i am beyond grateful.

i am grateful to my husband who has taught me adaptability. that nothing is ever set in stone and compromise is what marriage is all about. thank you for respecting my dance, my decisions and my dreams.

i am grateful to my mother, who has flown countless times to kl to let me dance. she always tells me to 'just do' things and we have somehow managed to make everything work out. she has made our date nights possible, she has given me the second wind of being able to dance again. in fact it was she who cultivated my love for the arts by bringing me to every single performance kuala lumpur offered and it was she that cultivated  my artistic tastebuds.

i am grateful to ramli ibrahim, joseph gonzales, marion d cruz, diana lui, sheila singam, rathi, fairul, faridah merican, raziman, sean ghazi, ida mariana, reza salleh, pete teo, anna chong, gerard and so so many of you who has inspired me in the past couple of months. your artistic  energy has been what i have craved for a long time and it is what i need to hone my craft and keep me going.

it's lonely you know dancing on your own. without a company, without master classes, rehearsals, etc. but i have been blessed with and by all of you that have carved a little space in my heart. thank you for making my 30th year of existence such a memorable one. to thirty more years to come!


No comments:

Post a Comment