Desire
I remember in eighth grade I had something I really wanted. Like, really wanted.
I've never really understood what really wanting something meant because I was never big on the materialism. That was the only thing I associated with that word, really. In 3rd grade I downgraded most of my materialistic dreams into fantasies and I was okay with that. In fact, I didn't think much of it.
But that thing in eighth grade I really wanted. I had wanted it for three years. And I had dreamed about it since I was cast in the production the first year and saw her rehearsing with us. Life would and did go on but I could not let it go. It hurt because I know I could have been something great. I know there were teachers on that panel that wanted me to have it. The sting hurt...
Now, it's almost the same thing. There have only ever been two things in my life that I have really wanted. Maybe three if you count me not wanting to leave Richmond. But in terms of things that I crave for so badly I have the nerve to ask God for them, only two.
I don't ask for a lot, do I? I've been fine with present-less birthdays and Christmases. Why is it that when there comes an opportunity for me to live a dream and want something real I don't get to have it? I'll let go of the desire in eighth grade because in a sense I was not given the opportunity. I didn't make it; there was nothing I could've done about that. I wasn't good enough. This time I did make it. I'm not sure how, but someone must have thought I was good enough. Much to my surprise, I got there and the road's clear for me to take it and live happily ever after. So why are there these things keeping me back from moving forward?
Looking back at eighth grade, I can't help but to conclude now that perhaps it was a foreshadowing. Ever since that year when I left, after Detroit, my dancing has deteriorated to the point that I don't even dance anymore. At one point it was something I couldn't live without and now it's disappeared into my past. It's almost as if I was one of those girls who did ballet when they were small and then dropped out as everyone else started to. But I wasn't. Dancing was my passion. What happened to it?
I don't want to attend some second-rate school and end up somewhere I don't want to be, knowing that I had the chance to be better. They say the doors will still be open but from here now, it looks like it's just beginning to close. What is my life going to become now? I have a horrible gut feeling saying that if I don't get there now I don't believe I will ever get there. (I hope I'm wrong).
Is that all I'm going to have to settle for, then?
Nothing?
Better get used to it.