Written August 5: Misgivings

A friend of mine wanted to join the ballet class I am going to attend. This intention was mentioned in the midst of stretching exercises, the stretching being the reason P wants to go.

Hey, I was excited and all at first. It’s nice to do something you’re passionate about with a friend. Not to mention the significant amount of money I get to save because I get to split the tricycle fare with someone. I could very well buy another pair of much-needed tights after a month or so with the saved up fare.

But something in me sort of snapped. Ballet is something I really love. My time in that studio is something that means a lot to me and when I leave it, I must deal with a deep sense of loneliness and loss. For anyone to “handle” something I consider beautiful callously in my eyes (or ears) evokes a strange and yet potent indignation. So potent in fact, that I didn’t handle it too well.

That night, I lay on my bed trying to manage the words I plugged up. I wanted to say that ballet is something beautiful. It’s about strength and it’s about grace. I wanted to tell TG that almost every class, there’s a chance that you could get discouraged---when you can’t execute a movement, when you can’t do 10 abdominal exercises and the teacher won’t let you move on until you finish, when everyone else is gliding over the floor and you are moving more like mop than a swing, when your teacher halts the entire class, makes you do a step and makes the other point out what you’re doing wrong. But you don’t give up on account of that or on the account of a lot of that. Because it isn’t what you can and cannot do. Sooner or later, you’ll get there anyway. It’s about loving what you’re doing, enjoying it and savoring it. And the stretching part is little more than 15 minutes and we don’t do that every class. What is TG going to do for the rest of the time? I wanted to say that one should think it through. You can’t decide on a whim. Why are you going? Is it just the stretching? There’s so much more than that. And that more is something you should take into consideration. You don’t like watching ballet or even lyrical dance. You say it’s boring. Why, why this then?

I kept quiet for the days that followed. I sensed that P would not take it in a good way if I said all I wanted to say. But the night we were to attend our first class together, I blurted it out.

And here we are now. Sigh. I felt better after having said all that. I don’t like the fact that it didn’t affect P the way I wanted it to. I hate to think that I may have blasted someone’s self-esteem to pieces. And it’s sad that P doesn’t want to go anymore for the wrong reasons. Perhaps, I am wrong. That’s always a huge possibility based on my track record in these matters. Unfortunately, I don’t want to say sorry. I may be cruel in treating that speech as a test of will. I may cover it up in good intentions of saving her the depression, or the misery or the self-loathing but those are really secondary to that fact that I found myself offended and I snapped.

I’m open to rebukes though. I’d love to be right, just this once, but what is wrong is wrong. It’ll take a while before I can give my sincere apologies though. God help me.