A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (Until It’s Not)

“Dream” is a big buzz word. In the movies, the big shiny dreams always come true. Sure, the path is riddled with trials and tribulations, but in the end, the dream is triumphant. Growing up, we’re conditioned to think that if we just keep pushing, if we just give up one more piece of ourselves, if we just inch one step closer to the breaking point, we will eventually rise from the ashes, victorious, dream in hand.

What we aren’t conditioned to do, is step away.

How do we learn when to stop? How do we reach a point where we feel at peace with taking a step back? When our pursuit of some grand idea begins to harm us - emotionally, mentally, and even physically - how do we not feel infinitely disappointed in ourselves for giving something up that we worked toward for so long?

I wish I knew the answer. Dancing was my entire identity for as long as I can remember. From age 2 to age 22, no matter where I went or who I was with, I was the dancer. I gave it everything, and it gave me nothing.

Okay, maybe it’s unfair to say it gave me nothing. I learned discipline, hard work, an appreciation for fine arts, a sense of rhythm. I made best friends, worked with teachers who became mentors, and performed in opera houses in front of thousands. But as much as I gained, I gave up more. I don’t necessarily regret missing out on the high school parties or the afternoons spent with friends instead of in the studio. But I do regret the things I gave up in the later years.

Those were the years when I began to give up more of myself. In college I pushed harder than ever, and ballet pushed back. Injury after injury, I began to get tired. As the degradation from a certain few professors got worse, my love for ballet began to lessen. For a year or two I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Throughout all of the hard classes, the long rehearsals, and the injuries, I had always told myself that I had to keep going because I loved it. So for me to stop because I no longer loved it as much as I once did felt like a failure.

I was stubborn. I wanted to prove everyone who doubted me wrong, including myself. Because that’s what we’re supposed to do, right? Keep trudging through and eventually, your dreams will materialize.

I think I could’ve done it. I could’ve kept trying to convince myself that ballet was still my dream and I could’ve kept working myself into the ground, but I couldn’t have done it with a smile. My college friends can probably attest to this. The last time I performed (which, I’ll add, was my favorite part of the whole shebang) was my junior year. I think I stopped smiling when I danced after that. By then I was so broken down, in all the ways you could be. I hated the way I felt in the studio, I hated the way I looked, and I hated that I hated something that everyone thought I loved.

For a while I felt like my whole life was summed up to a failure. My whole thing had always been succeeding. In school I always worked hard, and I always succeeded. Up until a certain point, the same was true with ballet. Getting so used to success makes the sting of quitting worse.

I actually hate the word “quit.” I almost never tell people that I quit ballet; I simply say, “I stopped.” Saying “I quit” feels like admitting that I gave up. In reality I think that my decision to step away from dance was, in many ways, stronger than choosing to stick with it. I had to have a difficult conversation with myself wherein I realized that the thing that used to make me infinitely happy now made me quite the opposite.

I think it takes a lot of strength to walk away from something that has shaped your whole life and who you are. We’re taught to keep working hard to reach our dreams no matter what life throws at us, but we’re not taught how to step away when our dreams are no longer our dreams. There’s no one to hold your hand when you put that dream to rest.

I feel better about stepping away from ballet now, at least mostly. I still can’t bring myself to take a class. Every time someone asks, I tell them I’m still working on finding a good drop-in class near me, but that’s not really true. I looked once, when I first moved to Chicago back in March. I haven’t looked again. I can’t watch ballet, either. I swiftly swipe through my friends’ Instagram stories, give a quick double tap and a scroll to the dance videos that they post. When people send me links to ballet videos that they think I’ll love, I respond with a short and sweet, “cool!”or, “so pretty!”. I never watch more than three seconds.

But I’ve found other things that I love, and I’ve found new dreams. I’ve begun to build myself a new identity outside of ballet. I’m not mad at myself for walking away anymore.

So I guess all of this is to say, sometimes your dream isn’t worth it. And I’m not being a downer, I’m just saying that sometimes, you need to step away from something that used to make you happy to find the new thing that does. That doesn’t make you weak, or a quitter. It just means you have the self awareness, and the self respect, and the strength to move on to something new. And if you need someone to hold your hand during the process, I’m happy to lend mine.

xo, Ellie