Dance.

Can i just tell you this? Cause I need to tell someone.

Honestly, I love to dance.

Can I say it again?

I LOVE TO DANCE!

I have never felt this before.. I have always liked dancing. and I have said that I love to dance before. But not like this. 

Every time I go to dance, I feel like I just learn so much more. 

So much more about myself, about the girls I dance with, about my director, about lives, about movement, about happiness,

 and sometimes even heartache. 

but most of all, about everyone's story.

Everyone has their one story to share and to tell, if they want to. Sometimes it is hard to tell that story. It can be scary and intimidating. It can be something you just don't like to do.

I used to be that way. I used to bottle things up inside of me for so long that I would eventually just have to explode. I always thought pushing things away would make it easier. I always thought just not worrying about it right now would somehow make it disappear. 

But if there is something I have learned from dance, or just in general, life. 

That, that is not the case.

 The only way to get through something is to let your feelings and emotions out. 

To let them be seen, even if it is only by you. 

Even if it is just to feel some peace again back in your life.

 Once you realize them and acknowledge them, it makes it that much easier to get over. 

Instead of putting them on the back burner waiting for something to come up again and again and then it's too late. 

I find myself so much happier now. 

So much happier that I know how to deal with things that come my way. 

At least, I know the steps of how to deal.

 So much happier knowing that I am not the only one. 

That others hurt more than I do. 

That everyone has their own life and own story to worry about. 

First, writing helped me get out my stress. 

I had never really been into writing. 

but I had always been into dance.

Ever since I was three years old, I had been dancing. 

This is going on my 14th year of dancing, and it took me 14 years to realize that dancing is healing.

 That dancing is expressing with out talking. 

That dancing is feeling and moving.

 That dancing is releasing and sharing yourself with you, 

with the audience,

 and with the ones you dance with. 

Dancing is not just getting on the stage and showing what you can do.

It is so much more than that.

Behind the technique we work on daily.

Behind striving to turn countless times in a row.

Behind striving to leap and over rotate through our splits till our hips ache.

Behind abs and pushups that make you sick.

Behind making yourself work so hard to try and get better.

There is feeling.

Emotion.

Realization of who you are.

There is so much more than I used to ever think there was.

 It is sad that it took me this long to figure it out. 

I have been told to my face that "you don't like dancing" and i believed her at that point. 

I really didn't.

 I was to caught up in trying to do this and trying to be like that that I totally forgot who I was. 

I was striving to be someone I wasn't.

 Something I wasn't. 

I know I need to improve in everything, but you don't improve by hurting yourself cause you can't do something as well as someone else. 

You improve by aspiring to get help and learning to do your best and feel your best.

 To have confidence in who you are. 

To live through the moment and breathe. 

To help yourself find peace and happiness. 

To hold your head high and tell them, This is why I dance.

I dance because I can.. I dance for that girl who wasn't able to.

I dance because I have the opportunity to use my body for good. 

To express myself and others through my movement. 

To express real things that really do happen. 

To express things that happen to people all around the world. 

I dance because I want to feel loved.. I want to dance and share my love.

I dance because my company dances. 

Together We Dance. 

We dance and share these moments together.

 Lifting each other. 

Loving each other.

 Caring for each other. 

Putting our whole story and our whole soul on that floor. 

Laying it down and walking away from every practice, lesson, rehearsal, performance with no regrets. 

Knowing we were prepared. 

Knowing we put it all down and held nothing back. 

We were us.

We were who we truly are. 

and who we truly want to be.

 We were our examples, our leaders, our team members. 

We dance because we want to.

 I never understood how much of an impact dancing can have on not only me, but the girls around me.

I thank you for the opportunity to dance.

To dance with you.

To be with you.

To work at building and strengthening myself with you.

I love you. 

I never thought I would say this, but for dance... I am truly grateful.

Thank you.

Why do I dance? Why do I breathe?

-Madeliene Louise Knudsen

Content in the fact that I finally realized something about my life that I have always had.