On: saying goodbye to the circus xx

Sometimes the story has no ending... sometimes the story is part of everything you are forever and one day. There is no manual for running away from the circus. What a journey! I have chosen to explore a fascinating and wonderful world on an unconventional path. What a marvelous place to be when I was learning life’s many lessons.

How do you look at everything you’ve created and say goodbye; how do you do it if one of those things is the fiber of you.  I’ve spent most of my life knotted and tangled in love with a version of who I could be. I have built and lost and rebuilt an identity; I don’t know how I will ever be this happy. I wonder what will make me this happy.

What else will govern me? What will make me feel strong, feel determined, feel beautiful? What will make me feel so alive?  Every time I try to articulate this, I can’t. It’s too big and thick and far too real to summarize. I’ll have to walk away from this chapter and I’ll have to convince myself its what I want.

Because of you, I know how to speak without words and I know how to give without exchange. Don’t leave me. I was just 10-years-old when I picked you. I cried and gasped and climbed and grew and it was my blood, and pain that made every tiny minute of glory feel like heaven; all that pain and all that immeasurable will and it began in a child's brain. I’d do it all over again; I would.

I sit here today wallowing in retrospect... and I think I may never be laced in the pieces of a grand spectacle again; it's both cool and haunting.

I’ve been on these blades now for 2-decades and 6-years. I’ll tell you everything.  It was: tears and sweat and broken bones. It was: thriving in a constant space of judgment. It was: yes, and no, and I’m sorry; we’re sorry. It was: can you, could you, will you...?  It was: give us more, learn faster, TRANSCEND!!! It was: think thin, be tall, and “oh, can you make that flat footed, leather, boot with a wooden sole look pointed.”

It wasn't: about the money, or the travel or the wonderful, unique people from a BIG world. But that stuff made it pure magic. All the additives made it so damn captivating, they made it hard to leave. This sport knocked me down and then it taught me how to climb, and how to do it vertically using only my fingernails. It taught me about art. It was a mixture of overwhelming joy and ill-timed setbacks. It was authentic and gritty but the whole bittersweet era was perfection. I’m telling the story and I’m telling it how I want to remember it. Just as it occurred, it was perfect.

I pushed my way into places I knew nothing about, I learned control, check, line, and edge quality; I learned how to land 5 different triple jumps in countless variety. I learned how to fall less painfully because the fight against gravity was a winless battle. I fought to be good over a pair of blades. It never promised me anything. It didn’t promise me red carpets or important medals, but fighting for something won't always get you admired. You won’t always get the job, the girl, you won't always get picked.

That was never the point.....

            “The hardest most refreshing lesson you’ll ever learn is that LIFE has very little to do with you. YOU get to SHOW up, you get to make moves. You get to touch lives, but no, you don’t become the starring role.” -HB

 

 And every tiny aspect in your life is the same. It was never about you, you’re lucky to be a part of it. I was lucky to be part of this sparkling world and lucky to meet my rare and unique accomplices. TO THEM THANK YOU, thank you to each and every person who has ever shared a moment on the ice with me. You have no idea how much I admire you! xx

 

 

 

 Photo By Steve Lee www.redboxstudios.co.uk By kind permission of Stageworks Worldwide Productions for the Hot Ice Show. www.stageworkswwp.com