Daily Prompt – Envelope Pushers

When was the last time you took a risk (big or small), and pushed your own boundaries — socially, professionally, or otherwise? Were you satisfied with the outcome?

I think perhaps the biggest risk I took was when I was going through the audition process for dance / performing arts courses when I was 18.

Daily Prompt – Showdown at Big Sky

How do you handle conflict? Boldly and directly? Or, do you prefer a more subtle approach?

I’m one of those people whose bark is worse than their bite… I tend to talk a big game, but don’t necessarily have the follow-through to back it up.

If anything, I’m more like a pussycat – I avoid conflict as much as humanly possible, because I can’t handle it too well… unless I’m pretty pissed off about something and ready to tear into somebody that I don’t necessarily know… then I’ll tear them to shreds.

Daily Prompt: Tainted Love

Ever been dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend? Was it a total surprise, or something you saw coming? Tell us your best worst breakup story. Never been the dumpee, always the dumper? Relate the story of a friend who got unceremoniously kicked to the curb. Change the names to protect the innocent if you must.

It was my 20th birthday, and I got dumped. Happy Birthday To Me, right?

I’d kinda been seeing this guy for a few months already, and the way I saw things, he was my boyfriend, and I was his. I didn’t really know what else to call it… is there such thing as a casual boyfriend?

Anyway, things were going well. It was still kinda new: we were spending our free time together. He was working full time; I was dancing full time; so we’d spend our nights together. It wasn’t every night, because we understood we both needed space and it was too soon to be joined at the hip. It was great spending time together, and being able to just hang out with somebody. It was exciting for me. I was so infatuated with this guy. He was tall, and very ruggedly good looking. He was the kind of guy who I couldn’t believe was actually interested in me, because to me, he was so incredibly hot and could’ve had anybody he wanted. To a point, he actually made me feel somewhat insecure quite regularly in the beginning, because I couldn’t stop second guessing everything he said and did. I felt as though it was some kind of elaborate set up, as though my housemates had put him up to it in order to crush my emotions later down the track.

Anyway, it was my birthday and I got up early to go and spend the day with my best friend. We went out for brunch, and then spent the day shopping. The car broke down later that day in Camberwell, but we still had a great time together. We then had plans to meet up later that night and go clubbing with a small group of friends.

I got home later that afternoon, and had planned on having a small nap before I had to get up, eat, and get ready.

It was about six o’clock when there was a knock at the door. It was G. He’d come over on a whim to drop off a small present for me. I, however, had already told him that I would just catch up with him tomorrow, because I had a busy day today, and wouldn’t have time to see him because he was also quite busy. But he stopped by anyway.

My housemate let him in, and he crept over to the bed where I was asleep. I had woken up when he knocked on the door, but then just as quickly fell asleep, but I woke again when I heard my bedroom door creek. I had just assumed it was one of my housemates putting something in my room… so I felt quite startled when I felt G lay down next to me and start whispering in my ear.

You know that moment when you’re really sleepy and somebody quietly wakes you up, and you have these whisper-conversations amongst you yawning and stretching and being half-asleep?? Well it was like that for a bit, but it felt really nice. It was a wonderful surprise to be asleep on my birthday and have my boyfriend show up unexpectedly. He was stroking my (wild and out of control) hair and whispered ‘Happy Birthday kid’ into my ear. I rolled over and kissed him hello…

…and then we ended up making out for an hour.

When we finally were able to catch our breaths, I explained how wonderful it was that he came to visit, and he said that he couldn’t let my birthday go past without actually seeing me.

He handed me a small gift. I can’t actually recall what that gift was. He’d been asking me for a week or so prior what I wanted to get for my birthday. I was humble enough to say I didn’t want him to get me anything, but when he kept pressing the issue, I gave him a couple of different ideas, in different price points. I didn’t really know where we stood on the relationship / present scale, so I gave him some options to try and gauge where he was at.

I just remember opening my gift and feeling quite disappointed in what he had gotten me. I didn’t dare show this expression, instead telling him how perfect it was and how it’ll always make me think of him. In my head, however, I was screaming in anger at how stupid he was for not getting me anything that I ACTUALLY wanted. What’s the point in asking me, and then me giving you a variety of possibilities, if you’re not actually going to use it?

So after all that, he says that he want’s to talk to me about something. I was thinking that he was going to tell me that my real present was actually a romantic weekend away together. Or maybe he was going to tell me that he was actually going to come to a gay club tonight (for the very first time) and get over his anxiety about it so he could celebrate my birthday with me. Or maybe he was going to invite me over to his place for a change and cook me dinner or some kind of wonderful, romantic gesture.

That wasn’t however what came out of his mouth.

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do this right now. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.’

I couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. I actually thought he was joking.

He wasn’t joking.

He then sat there and explained to me that he was feeling a bit confused, and was feeling a bit pressured into something that he wasn’t ready for. That something was called ‘a relationship’. He wasn’t ready to be in a relationship with me.

My heart jumped into my throat, and suddenly everything around me froze in time. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I didn’t understand. Only 2.5 weeks prior we had been truly intimate for the very first time. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, but I lost my virginity to this guy. I thought that he was the one… but in saying that, I was just shy of being twenty. I also thought my tight cotton-lycra dance pants were the most awesome thing ever.

So then all of a sudden, ten thousand questions start flooding my brain, and I stopped hearing the words coming out of his mouth. It was like all the sound disappeared, because all I could hear was my inner voice going mental with a constant stream of questions and self doubt.

Oh my god, what’s happening? How could he say that? What’s wrong with me? I knew it was too good to be true! Maybe this was the plan? I bet the girls (my housemates) put him up to this on purpose, just to do this and hurt me on my birthday. I though things were going well! I thought he liked me. Why doesn’t he like me? I waited so long before we had sex, and I explained that and he said he was cool with it! Maybe he wasn’t okay with it. Maybe he was just too frustrated. But I’ve been sleeping with him. And the sex is phenomenal. Maybe he doesn’t like it? Fuck, has he been lying to me? Oh my god, I can’t believe that he’s been lying to me this whole time. How could I have been so stupid?! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME!??

So then my inner dialogue exploded into outer dialogue and all these questions were being thrown at G like a constant barrage of ninja stars.

He said that he really likes me. He agreed that he’d never felt like this with anybody – never felt such an indescribable connection with another guy, but I knew that was just some bullshit line people give each other when they don’t want to speak the truth. He said that he’s cried more with me, than he has in the last few years, because he feels that comfortable with him. He told me that he was just too scared to be in a relationship because he’s too scared to give himself over completely. The thought of it terrified him.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

So I began to question him and everything he said. He was stating the facts and how it made him feel, and I wanted to believe him, but nobody does a complete 180 like that without a good enough reason.

Question after question and question.

Then he said it. The REAL reason behind all his bullshit.

He. Still. Had.  A. Boyfriend.

Yep. A FUCKING BOYFRIEND!! I couldn’t believe it. How could I have been so STUPID!! But then it made sense… of course it was all too good to be true. As if anybody that hot would ever remotely be interested in me, let alone give me the time of day. I had felt that it was too good to be true, and now I knew for certain.

I grabbed the present and threw it at him, and told him to get the fuck out of my house.

He countered by crying.

‘No. No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. You don’t get to stand there and cry, when you’re the one breaking up with me, on my BIRTHDAY… BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FUCKING BOYFRIEND!! You don’t get to be upset. You just get to be a fucking arsehole. Get the fuck out of my house. I’m done with you. Just delete my number. I want nothing to do with you.’

He continued his weird man-crying and fell against a wall asking me if I was okay.

No, I was just in a pure rage.

How the fuck could you do this? Of all the days, you had to pick my birthday. Seriously.. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??!?!?

I stood there trying so hard not to cry, but it didn’t last. The sadness was quickly replaced with sheer rage, and I went crazy at him. How dare you stand there and tell me you’re not ready for a relationship…. oh that’s right, BECAUSE YOU’RE ALREADY IN ONE… oh, what’s this, OH, BECAUSE YOU’VE BEEN WITH THIS GUY FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS ALREADY… I’m not asking you to leave you boyfriend, I just wish I had’ve known about it before I fell in love with you and wanted you to be my knight in shining armour; my prince charming.

I finally kicked him out and watched him go sit in his car and cry into his steering wheel before returning inside and looking for my phone. I couldn’t believe what just happened. I needed to talk it through with somebody, so I went to call D.

I picked up my phone and saw a stack of missed calls and messages, and started going through them one-by-one. Each one of them was one of my so-called ‘friends’ telling me they suddenly weren’t coming tonight to celebrate my birthday because they conveniently had something else on, or they had suddenly come down with some kind of illness.

What better way to fill that giant hole in my chest that G just cut out with a giant rusty knife, than with some super excruciating bullshit which burnt like lemon juice.

I then got a call from two of my friends who were already on their way in from Geelong. They were about 20mins away from my place, and told me to get my arse into gear. I quickly showered and got myself dressed, and then started received a stream of text messages from G. He’d obviously realised how much of a cunt he had just been to dump me on my birthday, and tell me he’s not able to be in a relationship, because he’s already in one. Perhaps the worst possible timing ever!!

The boys turned up, and I ended up asking them to come inside and we started talking. I ended up confessing to them that I’d been seeing G. See, I hadn’t told anybody about G. It was a secret for me. A couple of my friends thought that I might be seeing somebody, because I was never around to hang out with them, but I never admitted anything to anybody… except now.

So, almost three hours later, it was approaching midnight, and we were well and truly fashionably late, so we picked ourselves off and headed off to the club. The cherry on top was having more people cancel on me and then the boys leaving after only an hour and a half. I distinctly recall it being 2am, and I was all by myself. I was sitting on a couch upstairs at this club replaying the entire day back in my head, piece by piece, and realising how much of an epic clusterfuck the entire day was. I was more surprised that I wasn’t at home in bed having some kind of emotional breakdown.

Instead, I just needed to dance. And I did. And boy did I dance. I decided that for the rest of the night, I wasn’t going to allow myself to have any more inhibitions, and I just let loose. I remember catching a tram home around 6:30 – 7am as the sun was rising, and feeling as though I had just had the best night out ever. And it was all on my own.

However, all night I was still getting messages from G. I told him to fuck off and stop messaging me with his messages of self-regret. He made a choice, he has to live with it. It doesn’t mean he gets to message me constantly and still try to make me feel better by telling me how much he loves being with me. Sorry, I’m not having that shit.

UGH. I can’t believe that I lost my virginity to somebody who turned out to be such a cunt.

I felt so stupid for falling for him so quickly. I can’t believe that I had been such a dickhead. How could I have been so gullible. I always thought I was so smart with this kind of stuff, and yet I turned out to be so dumb.

I don’t think I was ever the same after that. It really changed me and my outlook on relationships. After that, I never wanted to be in a relationship. I wanted to only ever have casual flings with guys, because I never wanted to allow myself to get that close to anybody ever again. If I don’t allow myself to get close, then I won’t end up getting hurt if things don’t work out.

Turns out it just fucked with my head more than I had anticipated, and was the beginning of perhaps one of the most destructive relationships I’ve ever had. More of my fucked-up relationship with G can be found here. There are so many of these kind of scenarios that I had with G, I knew that it was wrong from the beginning, but I just couldn’t bear to completely cut him out of my life. It became such an on-again, off-again type of relationship that actually did far more harm and far more damage than good.

I’ll never be the same after that relationship, and not in a good sense.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/22/daily-prompt-tainted-love/

Feb 11: Thoughts in Perspective

What helps you keep thoughts in perspective so they don’t overwhelm you?

*lol* Well, let’s just be honest here… this doesn’t happen.

My mind is constantly whirring with a thousand different thoughts all at once – and each thought is like a never-ending mind map, it’s just that each thought branches off into it’s own though, which in turn branches into another thought… and they all happen simultaneously and it drives me crazy. Being alone with my thoughts is probably one of the worst things, and one of the best things all at the same time.

The worst because it really can become overwhelming, especially if they’re full of emotion and suddenly I’m sitting in the bathtub having a shower at 1am silently crying… yet I might not necessarily know why. But at the same time, whilst I’m crying I’ll be thinking to myself, ‘I really should be writing this. I should be writing about ALL of this’.

WRITE ABOUT ALL THE FEELS!!

But the good thing about these moments of silent-emotional-breakdown, is that it allows me to put the emotion to the side (or, well, outside – in the form of tears / pain / sadness etc) and look at just the facts. Analyse everything. Pros. Cons. Good. Bad. If X then Y. And then I start to look at solutions, alternatives etc.

It’s not necessarily the best way to deal with my thoughts, but like I said, I’m so preoccupied having so many of them now, I really don’t know where to begin. Take this exact moment… finish blog post; post to blog her; oh god I need to poo; damn I can’t stay any longer or i’ll be late for class; I need to change my playlist; i’m so hungry; i want cake; oh, no seriously, i need to poo; i gotta get out of this office; god damn i have so many feelings; wow, I’m really typing quite fast – go me! I can’t sit still properly; i should have another drink of water; i wonder if it still smells like fire outside?; is it hot outside? why haven’t i finished this yet?? GAAAHHH!!!

And that’s normal for me. All at once. I hear all that from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep. All day. CONSTANTLY. It’s almost impossible not to let it get to you and become overwhelming, but I think that because I’ve been like that for so many years, I’m used to it, and to not have such an active brain would probably send me crazy… like certifiably, white jump-suit padded-room crazy.

Dec 11 – The Road Less Travelled

Tell us about a time you took the less travelled path.

So, it’s taken me almost a week to write this post. Everytime I come back to it, I try to think of a possible response to this, and I really struggle.

I read some of other blogs and what they had to say, and I can’t really relate to them because I haven’t experienced it personally.

So, what the hell can I write about? I’ve had a pretty normal, average life. I haven’t really faced any major adversity, nor have I had to deal with major decisions.

But then I came back to it today, and thought some more about it. And although it’s slightly relevant, I’d say that my road less travelled was moving out of home.

I was 19. I’d been living in a country town with my mum and my brother. I didn’t get my act together soon enough after year 12 to audition for dance schools, so I had to quickly work out what I was doing for the following year. I enrolled into a TAFE course studying I.T., and soon enough that fell by the wayside in order for me to completely immerse myself in musical theatre and even more dance tuition. I just wanted something to fill my days.

Later that year I made the decision that I couldn’t stay in this town any longer. I refused to turn into most of the other people that were in my social circle. I had to get out. I’d already discovered my independent nature, and knew that if I stayed for another year, it would break me and I’d never leave.

I spent my focus on working towards my dance school auditions in both Sydney and Melbourne, which meant a couple of trips to both places. It was during these auditions, I very quickly came to the realisation, that although I was a very talented dancer back home, I was NOTHING compared to these city dancers.

I did masterclasses and round after round of callbacks. Dancing and styles that I’d never seen before, but were apparently normal here in the big city. I felt so sheltered and terrified, and yet, my eyes felt like they had dilated to the size of dinner plates, because I’d now got a taste for real dancing, and sweet fucking jesus, I WANTED MORE!!!

However, my first auditions were in Sydney for a couple of schools. I thought I was so prepared. It just turned out to be quite a fucking failure. During one of the callbacks, I was standing at the back of the studio looking at all these dancers, and I realised that I had absolutely no chance of making it here. If I really wanted to have a shot, I’d have to spend the next twelve months here just taking classes every single week to really learn how to dance the way they wanted me to.

It made me realise that all the training I’d done, all the work I’d put into my solo pieces, and all my technique sessions, and the countless hours and pain, and exhaustion, and sweat, and blisters counted for absolutely fucking NOTHING.

Having this realisation isn’t a great feeling. Having this realisation during your audition most certtainly is one of the worst things a performer can ever experience. I ended up standing down the back, dancing through a routine, crying my eyes out, wondering why I had even bothered staying.

It’s hard to concentrate on your triple-chaine-triple-pirouette combo when you have tears flying off your face whilst you’re trying to spot your turns. There were tears flying in every direction and I could seem them all getting airborne, as if everything was happening in slow motion. I finished my combo, and the panel thanked us all and left the room.

A minute or so later, one of them came back in and walked right up to me, ‘Come with me!’

She lead me out of the studio, with EVERYBODY staring at me. I had no idea what was going on.

‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you need to get your shit together. If you don’t want to be here, then stop wasting your time and our time, and pack your stuff and leave. If you can’t handle the pressure then leave. If you’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon crying, leave.’

Um… wow.

‘I’m so sorry. I really am. I just, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This is really overwhelming from me. I’m from the country, and I’ve never done…’

‘Yes, we can tell. Your technique is poor, and you lack proper training. You said you’ve been dancing for years, but you’ve been wasting your time. You’ll achieve nothing if you don’t expose yourself to the REAL world of dance. This is it. This is what it’s like. If you can’t handle that, then so be it. But you’re obviously here today for a reason. And if we didn’t think that you had serious potential, then you wouldn’t still be here’

‘But, but I…’

‘Look, I’m not supposed to be saying anything, but we’re all watching you. I was once like you, a country kid in the big city, feeling majorly overwhelmed because I’d had no exposure. I get you. I was you. I see something in you. They see something in you. Even the rest of the people on that floor are watching you – we see their snide little comments, and how they talk behind your back. But I’m telling you, if you don’t fucking pull it together, you won’t make it. Here or anywhere else. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘No ‘buts’. Go wash your face, you look fucking terrible. Change your top, and get back in there. You’ve got three-and-a-half minutes before we re-commence. If you aren’t ready then you need to leave now.’

I ran off to get another top, and ran into the bathroom.

And vomited.

Everywhere.

And had one of those moments…

And I went back into the studio for the next dance round. I walked in and looked at everybody on the panel and they all smiled at me. I took a sip of water and wiped my face. I stood up and turned around to look at all the other people in the studio and they were all looking at me.

I made it through the next round, and then got knocked out of the following callback. The judges all said that I had great potential and that I had an ‘X Factor’ when I danced – they couldn’t keep their eyes off me. Whether they were just blowing smoke up my arse, I’m not sure, but each of them said that they would love to see me in the future in their classes, which was great.

I felt good at what had happened. I realised that I wasn’t ready for dance school at all, and I really needed to work my arse off.

I got back to my hotel room…

Knowing that I had another audition the next day, I really didn’t know whether to put myself through such an emotionally exhausting day again… but it was experience. I wanted to just pull out and go home and never speak of it again, but I’d come too far, paid too much money and worked too hard to not do the audition.

The next day, I was introduced to contemporary. I had never danced that style. When we found out that the focus of the dance audition was ballet and contemporary, I was ready to throw in the towel there and then, but I forced myself to stay instead.

I learnt a lot that day. A lot about myself. I learnt that no matter how prepared you think you are, it’s not enough. No matter how good you think you are, there are always going to be people better than you. It was a very blunt reality check, but I was okay with it.

A couple of weeks later I was in Melbourne for a dance school audition. In the weeks leading up to it, I’d gone back to sydney two weekends in a row to spend all my time doing classes at various places. I needed exposure. I needed experience.

When I got to my Melbourne audition, I was feeling even worse than I was in Sydney. From the moment I saw the building when I was walking towards it, I had butterflies in my stomach.

I made it through to the final call-back round.

There was such a difference between the Sydney dancers and the Melbourne dancers. It was strange. I actually felt quite confident in my Melbourne audition. But the judging panel were a bunch of steel-faced bitches.

And once it was all over, that was it. The last of us dancers slowly packed up our stuff, said it was nice to meet each other and we left. It was an anti-climax, and then my stupid brain kicked in on the way back to the hotel.

It was a very long wait for my letters to arrive in the mail. Not surprisingly, I got two rejection letters from the two Sydney schools. I then got an rejection letter from the school in Melbourne.

Shit just got real.

My dreams of dancing full-time had just gone down the toilet, and I was faced with the unsettling reality of staying where I was for another twelve months.

So I started looking into what I could do for the next year. Maybe I just move interstate and get a job so I can pay for dance training? Do I move to Sydney or Melbourne? I can’t stay here another year. If I don’t leave now, I never will.

A couple of weeks later I get a letter in the mail. I was a letter of offer. The school in Melbourne had somebody decline their offer – I was next on the list.

I did it. Granted, it happened by default, but it HAPPENED!! I was going to dance school. I was moving out of home. I was going to be leaving everything I know to travel to the big city and throw myself in the deep end.

That was 11 years ago, and I haven’t looked back.

However, most of my social circle from high school are still back home. Grossly overweight, either still living at home, or living with somebody they settled with. Some of them have a kid, some have two or three and it makes me sad.

It makes me sad because they just settled for what life gave them. They had no drive to actually go out and do something with their lives. They didn’t go to uni. They didn’t leave. They just became stuck into a life they settled for. There wasn’t any ambition to achieve something more. I sometimes felt sorry for them, but it’s what they chose for themselves.

I, on the other hand, got out. I wanted to explore life, and it lead me to Melbourne. And I absolutely love it.

Daily Prompt: Unexpected

Unexpectedly, you lose your job. (Or a loved one. Or something or someone important to you.) What do you do next?

I’ve actually already had this experience before.

Twice!

But, perhaps we should talk about the first time.

It was the year I moved to Melbourne. I had moved down here to study dance full time. Previously I felt like the big fish in a very, very, small pond. When I went to dance school, I was actually more like the very, very small, slightly retarded fish in a giant fucking ocean.

But soon enough, I found my feet and came out of my shell and worked my arse off and no longer felt like the small retarded fish any more.

Then I got injured.

I injured my spine in a pas de deux class, and without going into detail was told I had to stop dancing, or I’d end up with severe spinal issues for life, and possibly end up in a wheelchair.

So I had a couple of weeks off, and spent most of that time pretty much like this:

wondering what the fuck I was going to do with my life. All I have done is dance. All I know is dance. I didn’t go to uni because I wanted to dance. I hadn’t had a job, because DANCE! And now, all I had was a giant fucking question mark following me around 24hrs a day!

I spent the rest of the term working at the school. I sewed costumes, and supervised rehearsals for the end of year concert and when I wasn’t doing that, I worked downstairs in the office instead. Then one day, on my day off, I get a voicemail from them telling me that I didn’t need to come in tomorrow, they’d given my shift to another staff member. And that they wouldn’t be giving me any more shifts. They refused to give me any explanation as to why, and then stopped returning my calls.

I had just gotten fired.

Via a voicemail.

ON MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!!

However, when I left them a voicemail expressing my severe disappointment in their management and how unprofessionally they had conducted themselves, I began to make references to unfair dismissal and legal action. Funnily enough, they called me straight back and explained that due to my birthday, I would be entitled to a pay rise as well as other entitlements, and they financially couldn’t afford to keep me on as a casual. I then told them exactly what I thought about them and their school and their dodgy business practices and that they should be more cautious in how they conduct business, and manage their finances, because multiple goverment authorities could easily have them shut down…

…and we’d hate for that to happen, wouldn’t we!!

Surprisingly, I ended up getting my last pay, and a ‘bonus’, and a glowing letter or recommendation for future employers.

 

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/daily-prompt-unexpected/