I’ve always had this secret ambition to be a ballerina. To sashay across Broadway, dress up in tutus and crazy costumes and have a legitimate reason to wear legwarmers — we all know no one is really qualified to own legwarmers unless they dance.
After watching the inspiring, provocative Orchesis performance in January, I remembered that ambition. I suddenly and desperately wanted to find the nearest academy and dedicate my time, my body and my last few years of carefree adolescence to dance.
Then, I immediately felt ashamed. Ashamed that I’d never done it. I want to be as graceful as those girls. I want to dance on my toes for hours on end. I want to know all the ballet positions and those sexy-sounding French terms.
As they twirled, flipped and swept across the stage— so delicate, so poised, so passionate — I was increasingly reminded of all the things I haven’t accomplished by now.
I never committed fully to piano, or becoming fluent in German. I didn’t follow through on becoming a graphic communication major. I didn’t even get a double minor.
I still have lousy financial planning. I haven’t overcome my body image issues. I haven’t stepped outside the borders of this country. My at-home bakery is nothing more than a musing.
The truth is, I have no excuse for my feelings of inadequacy. I had the opportunities, the time, the means, the necessary motivation. I have the potential to be a confident, responsible, globe-trotting, well-rounded student/small business owner who dances every year in the “Nutcracker” and has “Moonlight Sonata” memorized.
Maybe it’s the reality of soon having a life that doesn’t center on school that makes me want to burrow back into its familiar halls. But this is my last quarter at Cal Poly and, more than I want to just move on and start my adult life, I wish I could go back to my days in Yosemite Hall’s Tower 1 and do it all over again.
I want a mulligan.