Last year, I endured one whole year in law school to fulfill my parents’ wishes. When I graduated from college, I had this heavy feeling in my heart that law was not for me but I didn’t want to completely turn it down. Also, I didn’t have the courage to tell my parents that I didn’t want it. Besides, I didn’t know where I was going so there was no harm in trying it out.
But in that one whole year in law school, that heavy feeling in my heart was just proven. Law school was definitely not for me. I felt like a young bird stuck in the nest. I wanted so much to fly and be free but my wings weren’t strong enough. Don’t get me wrong, I did my best to try to like it. As a matter of fact, I found everything we studied interesting and I loved my classmates and professors but I just couldn’t see myself as a lawyer. It was a path that I could never see myself taking.
And so, after the year ended, after the bucket of tears I’ve spilled, after the many sleepless nights of studying cases and laws for exams and oral recitations, I built up the courage to tell my parents that I wanted out.
Sure, they were disappointed, but like any other loving parent, they couldn’t help but set me free. Then, there was the question….WHAT WAS I GONNA DO? I couldn’t answer them and I told them honestly that I still had no idea what I wanted to do. Luckily for me they were gracious and understanding enough not to force me to answer that question on the spot. Instead, they gave me a year to think about it. So here we are.
My year’s almost up but I still have no idea what to do with my life. All I’ve done so far was dance and teach here in Balletcenter. We were so busy preparing for our Director’s swan song, Romeo and Juliet, that I completely forgot about it. Actually, I didn’t ask myself that until now because after our show, there were so many other things we had to do. We performed excerpts in schools, joined the cast of Benjie Diola’s musical, “The Wiz”, and flew to Malaysia to perform in a charity dance concert that we were invited to. Even now, I’m busy. I choreographed dances for 3 classes and learned and taught Nutcracker excerpts to 2 classes while learning and dancing my own dance for our Christmas concert.
With my friends graduating and getting jobs, they asked me if I was gonna stay here in Balletcenter, find another job, or go back to law school. I couldn’t answer them because I haven’t exactly gone out and looked for other options. This one year given to me to figure things out just flew by so fast. However, I was pretty sure law school was out of the picture. Some of my friends said that ballet was my calling. But is it really? I for one know that there are way more better dancers than me. They’re younger too. Even my parents told me straight out that I couldn’t have ballet as my career because of my technique and my age. It might have hurt hearing that but I do agree with them. I don’t exactly suck, but I’m not that great either. Plus, I’m 22. There are 13-year-olds who can dance far better than me. But, just because I can’t compete with the ones out there, doesn’t entirely mean it’s not for me either. I love teaching my students. I love choreographing for them and I love dancing. Am I too blind to see that this could be the path chosen for me? Or is there something even greater for me out there that I still haven’t discovered?
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