Another year, another dance recital in the books. This year marks 12 years of dance for our (not so tiny) dancer. That adds up to around 20 recitals and too many competitions to count.
We have purchased somewhere around 150 costumes, and countless pairs of tap shoes, jazz shoes, pointe shoes, and hip-hop shoes.
We’ve bought earrings and makeup and tights and accessories. We’ve traveled hundreds of miles, slept in many hotel beds, and cheered from the audience in a lot of different venues.
Through it all, she continues to smile.
This year has brought some new challenges and hurdles as well as some wonderful accomplishments.
She danced most of this year injured with an overuse and muscle imbalance issue affecting both of her knees. She’s spent nights with ice packs as her friend and mornings popping Advil before tackling another day of school, dance, rinse, repeat.
Despite this unexpected hurdle, she refused to give up dance. (Her physical therapist will be her BFF this summer!)
She spent her year hitting some new goals and achieving some wonderful things. She began teaching classes at her studio and found a love of being a teacher and choreographer for the little ones.
She performed in her first ever Nutcracker performance with some amazing company dancers and a fellow studio friend.
She secured and fulfilled her role as an ambassador for one of her favorite competition companies. She worked backstage, rubbed elbows with the judges, and met a whole lot of new dance friends from Florida to Virginia.
She won her first title crown and earned her highest solo score ever.
She wowed us on the stage every single time…
She also grew in humbleness. She had some great performances and some that left her feeling disappointed. She held herself to impossibly high standards and found that on any given day, her turns can be less than perfect, her jumps won’t feel quite right, and someone else can out dance her.
Yet she didn’t stop. She worked harder, focused sharper, and left everything she had on the stage.
She danced her final recital of the year this past weekend feverish and sick. Yet no one in the audience was any the wiser because she still delivered her best.
Watching her on that stage dance number after number, I was just as amazed as I was watching her first ever performance. Although our girl has grown and transformed from tiny, uncoordinated cutie to beautiful and graceful on that stage, I still see a three-year-old tapping to “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”
She no longer needs me to tie her shoes, organize her costumes, or do her hair and makeup, but you still won’t find me far from her side.
I know these dance recitals won’t last forever. We have only a few of them left, and I can’t fathom the idea watching her take that stage for her last performance. So for now, I’ll soak it in.
I’ll continue to cheer the loudest and cry the hardest each time she performs. I’ll keep taking pictures and driving her to cold, loud venues to spend my weekends watching her tackle goal after goal.
I’ll be her biggest cheerleader, her chauffeur, her financial planner, and anything else she needs me to be. I’ll soak in these final few years of performances like the dessert soaks up summer rain because soon my days will be empty and my weekends won’t be booked. I won’t have schedules to balance, costumes to pay for, or competitions to plan for. I’ll have an empty calendar and enough photos of her to fill every single day many times over.
So, as this dance year ends, I remind myself to enjoy every single minute. I revel at the strong, courageous daughter we are raising, and I hope one day that I can be as fearless as she is every time she walks onto that stage.
I am not raising someone who shies away from hard work. I am raising a girl who breathes fire and knows her worth. I am raising a dancer.
Be grateful (for all the moments), water your own grass,
And drink coffee.
❤️❤️❤️
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