I want to be a ballerina when I grow up.

All my life, that’s been my dream.

One night, when I was three years old, as my mother was putting me to bed, I asked her what she did when she was my age. “Dance, gymnastics, and piano lessons.” I immediately wanted to do all three. After all, at that age, every little girl wants to be just like her mommy. That was the first step in a lifelong dream.

Years later, when I was about ten years old, I saw my first production of Giselle, and thought the leading dancer was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I wanted to do that, I told my mother. And just like that, we made the leap from my little, close-knit studio where I took classes once a week and performed at holiday faires and nursing homes, to a more serious dance studio, where I could take classes several times a week and be in their annual production of The Nutcracker. Ballet became my life.

Although injuries marred those years of dancing, I kept at it. I improved, gradually, until I was good enough to join the pre-professional company associated with the school. I was rehearsing daily, performing in several different shows every year. I had no life outside of dance – I rarely got to go out with my friends, I never went to my prom. Not your typical teenage life, sure, but this was the norm for anyone seriously following the dream of becoming a dancer. I loved it.

Still, no matter how hard I worked – never missing a class or rehearsal, always being there to understudy the pieces I wasn’t in – I was never quite good enough. Although I auditioned for the summer intensives at ABT or SFB, I never made it. Instead I went to a choreography intensive that my studio was given a scholarship for (and absolutely loved it – I was one of the dancers that the choreographers did their pieces on, and I loved learning an entirely new piece every single day of the two-week intensive). Perhaps it wasn’t ABT, but it was still… something.

When it came time to graduate high school, most good dancers will go audition for companies, start their dancing careers. After all, companies want their dancers young, right? But not me. Still… I just wasn’t good enough. So instead I went off to college – UC Irvine, which has an excellent dance program, and where such professors as Eli Barrigan (who had choreographed on my company before) and Bob Boross (who had been the jazz teacher at the choreography workshop I went to) were in residency.

But even that didn’t last long. Just months into my first year at the university, I got into a bad car accident. For months afterward, I couldn’t do anything.

I gave up.

“I’m too old, it’s too hard, I’m not good enough, and even by the time I could get good enough, I’ll be even older and nobody’s going to want me.”

I was eighteen when I gave up on my dreams.

It wasn’t until I was twenty-one that I went back to ballet. But even then, it wasn’t to follow the dream. Sure, I still said I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. I’ve always said it. But I didn’t really believe it. At that point, I didn’t think I could. I was dancing for my health, dancing because I was out of shape and hated the feeling. (I’m a self-employed programmer. I sit on my butt all day.) But I wasn’t dancing for the dream.

So it was still all too easy to give up. Stops and starts, too many excuses. “I’m tired,” “I’m too busy,” “I’ll go take class tomorrow. Maybe.” I would go take classes for a little while, then stop. Then weeks or months later, I’d start again, but it still wouldn’t last long enough. Every single time, it was like starting over. Every single time, I had to build up my flexibility, my strength, my stamina from the bottom up. Which, believe me, is frustrating as heck.

I want to be a ballerina when I grow up.

This time, I mean it. I’m sick of holding myself back. I’m sick of not going for it, of not putting in the time and effort to follow my dream. I’m sick of the excuses.

So I’m going for it. I WILL be a professional dancer. So what if I’m twenty-three years old… which some might say is too old to break into the world of professional ballet. They can go suck it. This is my dream, after all.

I. Will. Do. It.

Hold me to it.