Dance Your Dream

is sitting in my room singing my heart out or dancing. 

Not wise.  Not wise at all.

This is probably going to be a long ass rant so I’m sorry in advance.

The plan was to leave at 6 this morning for Ocean City, NJ to beat the worst of the traffic.  So I woke up at 5 and got myself ready to go.  Right on schedule, I go to wake my mother at 5:30 as planned.  I find the  entire rest of my family asleep.  Slightly annoyed, I wake my mom.  My dad laughs it off saying, “Hehe, I guess I slept in a little” then proceeds to walk into his room, lie down, and fall asleep.  Since the car isn’t packed (which my father was supposed to do last night), my mom goes back to sleep and says, “We’re leaving later.”

Unlike every other member of my family, I cannot simply go back to sleep once I wake up.  Especially now.  In case you don’t know, I’m having a hard enough time sleeping at night and haven’t gotten any real rest in over a month now.  So this really irritates me.  I could use all the sleep I can ge and now I’m stuck awake for no reason.  8:30 rolls around and my mom just wakes up.  As I sit down in her room she tells me, “You know, I’m really not awake yet and you just walked right in here and sat down.”  There was so much attitude and rudeness in her voice that it took every ounce of self control I have not to yell at her.  Keep in mind that I’ve been awake since 5 doing nothing because no one else in my house can stick to a plan.

I can’t wait to go back to school.  There I can run my own life, my own schedule, and call the shots.  If I need to leave for rehearsal at a certain time, I do it.  I don’t flounder around and leave 20 minutes later.  I am never late when it’s my call.  I am always on time for events or early for rehearsals.  That is how it should be.  People set times and make plans for a reason and it doesn’t make sense not to follow.  I honestly don’t understand what is so hard about following through.  This just goes to show how unreliable and flaky my family really is.  It is currently 9:00 and nothing has happened.  The car isn’t packed even a little and my brother is still asleep.  Hey parents, next time we have to leave early in the morning, how about you put your drinks down for once and go to sleep.  Novel idea right there.

I’m so sick of everything in this house and family.  I’m treated like a guest here and it’s obvious that I don’t belong here.  This isn’t my home anymore.  I don’t know where I belong, but not here.  I barely know my family anymore and the bit I do know tells me that they aren’t the people I grew up loving.  They are the kind of people I grew up hating.  They have changed into how I never want to be.  The kinds of people I avoid like the plague and tell myself that I’ll never be like.  I don’t understand why.  WHen did my family turn into strangers.  Such hateful, rude strangers.  What am I supposed to do?  Pretend to still love them like I always have?  I’m trying but it gets harder every day.  I just need to get out of this terrible place before I’m forced to cry myself to sleep yet again.  I don’t know how much longer I can live in this place with these people feeling as empty as I do.  I’m a shell, a shadow of who I was and who I wish to be.  It just hurts so much.

I just can’t.  I have nothing left.  All they do is take, take, take.  I have nothing left to give.  I’m empty; I’m done.  I need freedom.  I need an escape, for good.

Hopefully it provides a nice break from this hell.  I need it.

End of story.

I am so over you and your stupid bullshit.  Get yourself together and grow up. 

that all the colorguard videos I’ve been given to watch are all made by WGI- Winter Guard International.  This explains why I’ve been watching these thinking that I can’t use most of the stuff they say in them. 

Anyone who knows anything about colorguard knows that winter guard and marching band colorguard are completely different entities.  You can’t do the same moves and need to utilize completely different techniques for them.  Winter guard is all about technique, precision, and telling a story.  It is beautiful and by far my favorite of the seasons.  Indoor <3  Marching band or outdoor season is about complimenting the band and you need bigger, grander moves and technique isn’t as important. 

So I’m basically sitting through these videos re-affirming everything I already know and ignoring most of it because of it’s connection to winter guard and impracticality for outdoor season.  Good fun.

If you are raising a child, you need to have consistency among the persons of authority.  They need to agree or else the child will not get a clear message of how to proceed or live and they will never understand.  It isn’t fair.

This being said, I understand that it is difficult when you have 5 people raising one child.  But when one person is always the same person to give the child anything and attempts to “over rule” everyone by letting the child do whatever she wants, it completely undoes any process.  When the rest of the family is pretty much on the same page, than it is not right or fair to tell the child to disregard what we say and do your own thing.  You cannot spend half the time pawning the child off on the rest of us and then assume that you “over rule” us just because you’re older. 

News flash- I watch her more and am a better parent to her than you are Dad.  You give her what she wants and ignore the rules and standards that we set out.  When she grows up to be a spoiled rotten, attitude-ridden, bratty, self-centered, terrible person, we have you to thank.  You should just go back to sleep and leave the parenting to the rest of us.  We can handle it much better without you.

There is always a bright side to everything.  You just need to find it. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help, to reach out for aid.  Someone will catch you and hold you up.

If you can’t find the strength yourself, someone will help you.

If you need someone, I will always be here. 

So my band director ordered 8 videos, each of which are over a hour, all about the basics of colorguard.  He asked me to watch them and perhaps use them in my teaching this season.  As soon as I started the first one, I knew how difficult getting through these would be.

I am 20 years old and this will be my 10th year doing colorguard.  I have dedicated half of my life to perfecting and performing this art.  I know the basics.  The yare ingrained into my blood and muscle memory.  I shouldn’t be the one watching these videos.  My new girls should be. 

I am so excited for this year.  Last year I was still nervous and just tried to lay low and do my job.  This year, I’m asserting myself and now we are getting much needed new and good quality sabres, fantastic and beautiful uniforms, exciting new props, and it’s gonna be totally awesome!  I am also planning on having extra optional rehearsals for some of the newer girls to learn more.  I don’t have enough time to set and strong technical base and choreograph an entire routine in the hours he has set for us, especially when I have new girls.  So the main rehearsals will be dedicated to writing the show and making sure that looks good.  Then I will have other practices if others need help or want to learn more technical moves.

I’m so excited.  I hope I don’t blow it. 

P.S. Listening to “Sabre FUNdamentals” while writing this.

It makes me sad.

 

JOE! 

First I spent my morning bonding with my mother which I never have time to do anymore.  Then I past my driver’s test!  Officially licensed!  After that, I checked mail and received 4 DVDs on teaching colorguard fundamentals and found out I got more scholarship and grant money so my loans are less this year! Every little bit helps!  My band director loved my uniform idea for the colorguard and we’re officially ordering new, actually good quality sabres to use for the season! 

I drove myself to work with no problems and had a pretty good shift.  By the end of the night I was dragging and I needed to help the other closer a lot (she is new and needed my experienced help).  Then at 15 before closing a table of 7 came in and I had to take them.  I didn’t end up leaving work until midnight (we close at 11). But Tom kept me sane and I kept him awake.  I drove home with absolutely no problems and no nervousness.  Now I just get to relax a bit before sleeping.

I have work tomorrow from 9-8.  I’m working with Tom again so we can bitch about the table that kept us up late again.  We’re really good at complaining.

Then Alex is coming to visit!!!  I haven’t seen him in forever and I simply cannot wait!  I just want to be in his arms again and feel his touch.  I miss him more than words can say.  I am so excited to see him!

Great day!