Senior year of high school was great. Rad. Awesome.
On New Year’s I got myself my very first boyfriend. Shortly thereafter, we went on a sweet date to the local ice-rink. He rented hockey skates. I rented figure skates. That is how it is supposed to be, right?
Around the same time, I auditioned for and was cast in my high school’s annual musical. That year, we performed “Guys & Dolls,” a show which held special meaning for me since it was the very first musical I had seen as a little kid.
I started dancing when I was two and a half. My mom says it was because I had lots of extra energy, so she needed a way for me to “burn it off.” Now that I have two extra-hyper boys, I can understand where she was coming from!
Dance was my life for a long time, about fifteen years worth. I did tap, ballet, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, and a smidgen of modern. I was part of our academy’s “performing divisions” from a young age until I “retired.” I placed and won “Dance Masters of America” and “Dance Masters of California” competitions. I went to Australia to perform at the U.S. Pavilion in Brisbane, Australia for the 1988 World Expo celebration.
When I thought of who I was, dance was a large portion of my identity.
As a junior in high school I quit dance in favor of academics. As both required more time, I had to decide which would be the most “practical.” And so, I stopped the performing divisions and competitions, choosing to study my tail off instead.
But during second semester senior year of high school, that all shifted. I was admitted to an Ivy-league institution back east and decided to do the typical senior-slump homework-wise. I tried out for Guys & Dolls, and jumped into my brand new relationship with more enthusiasm than I had put in my academics.
My new boyfriend and I enjoyed our ice-skating date and decided to do it on a regular basis. We decided that as long as I was going back east, I might as well purchase ice skates. After all, we could save on rental fees and then I could have them once I was east. Everyone skates back there, right?
When we went to the skate shop, the guy laughed when I assumed I would have to purchase figure skates.
“Do you plan on doing jumps and spins?” he smiled.
“Uh… no? But don’t girls just get figure skates?” I shrugged my shoulders, clueless.
The guy shook his head with his laughter. “You say you are going to Brown,” he smirked. “They have one of the best women’s ice-hockey teams in the country.”
I was dumbfounded. “Girls play hockey?”
And thus, I laced up a pair of junior-sized hockey skates, and have never looked back.
