4/25/07

Yes, it's me again. I was shocked to discover only an hour or two ago that my district has already cancelled school for tomorrow. I feel like a lazy a** because I'm trapped inside with like no room to run or exercise very well, so I feel like some fat lazy lard just sitting here on the computer, or in front of the TV trying to entertain myself. I feel a little bit better when I'm writing one of my stories but I'm still being lazy, just making my characters do some work feels nice at times I guess. So, since you're a new diary you don't know a lot about my past, so I thought I'd take some time to enlighten you and any readers a bit although much of it would be boring, and if I were to write an autobiography it would undoubtedly never sell or make big bucks. Regardless I am bored and this is how I'm going to entertain myself. Well, from the time I was very little, I remember wanting to be a grateful dancer-I also remember wanting to be able to fly. I can vaguely remember my mom taking me to a gymnastics place and for a while I guess that satisfied me, but although I can't remember why, I also remember being taken to many dance studios after a bit of gymnastics. It must have been decided that I preferred dancing to gymnastics because my mom ended up signing me up for dance classes. I was never worried about my weight, I would eat as much candy and sweets as I wanted because I knew I would burn them all off within hours. I was a dancer, a dancer who danced about 20 or so hours a week. I lived to dance, and I loved to dance. It was my way of expressing passion, of challenging my body beyond it's limits and moving the end line over each second as I forced it to do the impossible, to turn out more, to stretch further, to hold longer, to get me higher and higher into the air. To soar to new heights. I loved dance...dancing was fun and very quickly, I was rising with my age group to new heights. As we all entered competitions for the first time, a new intensity from dance emerged demanding more and more hours. It was consuming my entire being. And for a while, that was okay... Then came the end of middle school...relationships were starting, people would invite me to sleep overs that I would turn down because I knew if I went I wouldn't sleep enough to be able to dance my full potential the next day. While people around me were blossoming with friendships I wasn't. My friends in dance knew more around me than my friends in school, my friends in dance were really the only people I interacted with other than my mom and dad who would drive me to and from dance (leaving me there for hours each day) and bring me food or pencils so I could eat and do homework during the breaks. I strictly remember a time (which is pertinent a little later) when we were learning a large group dance. In the dance, my teacher called me over and told me I was to be lifted. I was ecstatic! For once I would finally fly with only my dancer friends holding me up in the air, I'd be as close to the sky as I ever would be. Like I said, I had always wanted to fly...but then because I was taller, and heavier than another girl, when the girl came in, she was given my liftee part instead. I was to be a lifter of someone smaller because I was one of the tallest dancers...I wanted to cry. I remember being SOOO mad that my body was tall, that I was heavier because I was taller, and that I couldn't fly because I was heavy....now moving on from this story back to my life being consumed by dancing. I realized, that competiting dance wasn't making me happy anymore..dancing had been something I always did because I loved it. And competition had always been something I did because it made me better, but because my own motivation didn't match my new teacher's. I was miserable. ESPECIALLY because a group of dancers (one my best friend) was going to our rival dance studio and considering transferring there. Everyone knew this, and those who were loyal to my dance studio despised those who were leaving. My best friend at the time, Kayla, slowly was leaving the studio and everyone was sure I had gone with her (to this day I haven't set a foot in another dance studio). I was hurt, and now my dancer friends hated me. Kayla left the studio, the one girl I stayed loyal to when everyone hated her left me at the dance studio. I couldn't feel more alone than I did. I quit competiting-it was only depressng me further. And at the time that was okay because competition and advanced classes weren't required to be the same. So I could take advanced classes without competing. I made friends at school and saw doors to many opportunities I could take if I cut back on dance. So when the new year's dance class schedule came, and I saw you weren't allowed to take advanced classes without competing in them, I knew I couldn't take advanced classes anymore. I took an intermediate class instead and often taught or aided the teacher in teaching. The girls all knew I didn't belong there, but it was okay, because I was dancing, that's all I ever wanted, and all I ever needed. I had friends at school, and my first few boyfriends. And yet-I felt my skills fading. My muscles were changing for their new demands on new sports such as lacrosse. My legs were getting bigger, instead of being slenderly muscular. My body was changing, I got boobs, I got more fat. I realized I hated my body. I turned to something many dancers are familiar with, anorexia. I had to be lighter, I just had to. I stopped eating..but unfortunately parents, friends, everyone noticed. So I had to wait...I relapsed a few times trying to earn my dancer body again without going to the dance classes. And yet again I was caught. I thought vomiting my food would be easier, so I tried, but I couldn't self induce vomiting. Bulimia wasn't an option. And finally I thought I'd get my head on straight. Just run, I thought, run everyday and burn calories. I would go on long runs, not keeping hydrated well because I didn't like running with a water bottle. I would run for an hour-two hours each day, and do yoga/ pilate moves at night. I felt better about myself, but my body felt worse. One morning I woke up in my bed with terrible stomach pains, I might've fallen asleep but looking back from how suddenly it was, I think I fainted. When I awoke I dashed into the rest room and fainted, when I woke up I started barfing on the carpet, throwing up multiple times. My mom heard me and ran to the rest room. She says I looked like paper, and told me I probably had the stomach flu. That if I could make it an entire day things would be okay. So I went and laid down on the couch and put in Lord of the Rings, planning on watching all three and more movies to distract myself throughout the day. I piled blankets on me and put a trash can at my side totally prepared. I'd be watching the movie and feel slightly numb...yet pained at the same time, and wake up to my dad beside me holding my hands and calling my name. I thought after the third time fainting that morning that this would stop. But I kept fainting. Four times in six hours. So my mom called the E.R., even though I was sure I didn't need it, she brought me in, when I walked through the door, a man asked if I needed a wheel chair. I felt foolish but I took it and was wheeled back to get my blood pressure. The lady laughed the first time she took it, sure she had got the number wrong, but frowned. It was a 74/38. Maybe because of my brachycardia, they thought I was going to die or something so they rushed me ahead of the waiting list and into a room where they put people who need critical attention. Hooked me up to monitors and an I.V. I ended up getting five I.V's, three salt I.V.'s and two sugar ones. I had been dehydrated. They determined, and although I didn't say it, I knew why. Over exercising, I had exercised myself almost to death. I remember wanting to die as I laid there, it was so painful, so humiliating, so...awful. I now understand the significance of blood pressure that low, and how awful it feels... But all I had wanted was the old body I had once had...that's all I still want...I still want to be small enough, to be pretty enough to be a dancer. To be able to fly.. Well there's a lot more to my life but dancing was a huge part of it so here was my talk about part of my life, for now. -xoxox ToRi/Miley