The One with the Dancing Dilemma.

It's the last day I'll be writing two tributes in one post! It's been tough doing that with my time constraints, but I did it! Now I can sort of slow down with one a day; I can focus a little more on one at a time, and I'm sure I'll find just as much to say.

Let's recap:
1) My brother
2) My dad
3) Unnaturally Green by Felicia Ricci
4) Ames and Emily
5) Christmas music
6) Adam West
7) Photos
8) Weight Watchers
9) Papaw
10) Complimenting others

Now, without further ado...

Tribute to Thanksgiving #11: "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." - Maya Angelou

As I write this, my apartment is filled with a smell that reminds me of home: my mom's chili.

I can't even remember how many times I ate it as a kid; I just remember loving it all the time. Most often, we'd have it when it was getting cold out. The best thing was walking in from being somewhere or waking up and smelling it all through the house.

Of course I think it's delicious, and I'm biased, but it's a comfort... which is exactly why I'm making it right now. I love being away from home and having something so small make me feel like I'm there.

Tribute to Thanksgiving #12: "Our strength grows out of our weaknesses." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

All right. Let's talk about it. My biggest trial? Dancing.
This seems a little strange, I'm sure, to be blogging in a gratitude journal about something I'm so insecure with... but I've really been thinking on it lately. I obviously want to pursue musical theatre performance as my career. It's obviously what I am the most passionate about. But this is a wall I often hit.

My problem lies in picking up the dances quickly. Eventually I can make myself look like a decent dancer, but starting out and learning the dance as quickly as those around me is where I run into a real jam. I find myself getting extremely frustrated and sad if I can't get it, and I've found that I have to work ten times as long as the next person. It probably seems minuscule, but this is my lot.

I know it seems trivial to be calling this my greatest load to bear, but it's the truth. To feel as deeply for something and to feel like there is something standing in the way is less than pleasant.

I was talking to a friend the other day and I said, "I think about it as a struggle everyday." Certainly I run into occasional, sometimes daily, issues... but I eventually figure those things out; this lives with me day in and day out. I've taken lessons and classes where the frustration of not getting something without killing myself over it gives me panic attacks. I feel so out of control when I'm dancing or learning a dance.

During the conversation I was having with this friend, he said something along the lines of, "I feel that success isn't gained by eliminating our weaknesses, but that it is found best by investing in our strengths."

My point is this: I believe that this is something I'm going to deal with for all of my career... but I fully intend on doing just that - dealing with it. Working with it. Trying to fix it while not becoming fixated on it. Not ignoring it, but not letting it define me.

And being completely grateful that we are given things in our short lives to keep us humble human beings.