Tagged for the Unusual

I think this was the first time I've been tagged personally, so I'm responding even though it was from last December by my bud JILL. Hers were hilarious, so mine will not measure up I'm sure.

I'm supposed to share 6 unusual things about myself.

I guess to think of unusual things about myself depends on my definition of unusual. I define unusual as something that most people don't know about me maybe and things I consider unique....

1. From age 3 to age 16 I was a BUN HEAD. What is a "bun head" you ask? Definition: a person who allows ballet to encompass most wakeful thoughts, goals, future plans, schedule, sacrifices anything in their life that would interfere with pursuing ballet. Sad but oh so true. I saw The Nutcracker on TV when I was three and fell in love and told my mom "I want to dance on my toes." At age 9 I arranged with my Grandma that I would move in with her to live closer to a ballet school that offered serious classical ballet training. My mom decided it was important enough to me she'd drive me the extra mileage. At age 10 I wrote "PRO BALLET IS MY FUTURE" on the arm rest of the family 1889 Suburban...I'm still hearing about that all the time. I did have some great experiences dancing so seriously, some bad experiences include my still deformed toes, but the good things are priceless. ..

• life long friendships with the girls I ended up spending more time with than my family during those years. So many fun times and amazing people
• opportunity to sacrifice a lot for something I was passionate about
• push myself physically
• learn mental and emotional toughness--the dance world can be ruthless on young girls
• chances to travel: Netherlands, Austria, Oregon, Arizona, California, even lived in San Francisco the summer before my sophomore year of high school dancing
• having the high of participating in something you absolutely love doing...artistic fulfillment maybe?

I was 15 and planning to basically drop out of high school and graduate in packets to dance for a small local professional company. My plan was to pursue a career, hopefully ending up in a big company in the next few years. Looking back, I see how I really wanted to put ballet above all other areas in my life and how short sighted I was.

Luckily, God blessed me with stress fractures in my hips that prevented me from dancing. This injury humbled me by allowing my world to crumble to my feet and from the stubble I realized where my priorities should be to help me obtain my true goals in life. Oddly enough, this injury was the hardest trial of my life so far because, at the time, every aspect of my life was altered when I left ballet because I'd allowed it to become my life. I found myself struggling to get to know my family that I'd not been around so much, trying to rekindle friendships at school that I'd let go because I had my ballet friends, and the aching hole in my identity not being able to dance, and testing my faith in God. I didn't understand why He would bless me with a talent, and then take it away after I'd sacrificed so much to magnify it. I think I was so obsessed about ballet I was doing anything to keep doing it, trying to use my own faith to make God change His will (not a logical idea by the way, you get closer to God which is good, but I found He is smarter than I am and broken hips is really what He wanted and the injury was't a trial of my faith, but a wake up call). I really held onto the parable from the New Testament about the woman being physically healed by touching the garment of Christ and then finding out it was by her own faith she was healed. I put myself through spiritual boot camp to try to develop faith sufficient for God to heal my body so I could return to ballet, but found instead God healed my soul so I could have the strength leave it.

It took 6 months for God to wrench my life around and through this process I found Him and myself. I figured out who I was and what was important in life to me in the long run, and realized ballet just couldn't be part of my plans anymore. I actually did return to ballet after healing through the injury, thinking I could still pursue it as an extracurricular activity, not allowing it to become my life again. I actually got back in shape quicker than I expected and performed one last time. It was George Balanchine's Serenade. Probably my favorite ballet I've ever danced, and one of the most fulfilling performances I've had...a tender mercy I think from God because He knew it would be my last. The next 3 days my injury flared up worse than it had ever been before and I knew it was time to hang up the point shoes forever...oddly enough there's still a huge basket of my nasty, worn point shoes sitting in my Mom's living room. But when I gave it up it was forever. I think it would be harder for me to just dance for fun than not do it at all, which I guess is what I've done, I haven't taken a dance class since. And maybe I never would have had the talent/ ability to dance professionally and God saved me the disappointment of giving it my all just to fail and turn around and find I didn't leave myself any other options. Even watching ballet now, awakens my passion I still have for the art and I do admit, even 7 years later, I still miss it in the back of my heart where I try not to look very often.

Looking back, it was the hardest thing I've gone through...which sounds so lame. The hardest thing in your life was giving up ballet? Cushy life...or that's just how important I'd foolishly allowed it to become to me and God knew ballet would be the hardest thing for me to sacrifice in order for me to gain a relationship with Him, and obviously it was worth it...and another perk has been my feet do look much better now than they did. :) And I have experienced much more happiness out of ballet than it could have offered me. I guess that's the gift of trials, to finally see why you had to go through something. The point where you look back and are grateful God allowed you to suffer because you understand the blessings that came from it--in my case, blessings that would radiate in all directions and in all aspects of my life.

HOLY CRAP...NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. I JUST STARTED AND IT ALL GUSHED OUT. A LOT MORE SENTIMENTAL THAN I USUALLY LIKE TO BE AND FAR TOO SERIOUS FOR THIS BLOG. I GUESS THIS POST WILL BE UNUSUAL FOR ME IN ADDITION TO TELLING WHY I'M UNUSUAL...sorry for the seriousness.

Now for something unusual about me that is a little more light hearted.

2. I love RASPBERRIES. For some reason, my brain is chemically engineered to react to raspberries as if it were cocaine or heroine. I can't get enough and it's "eating euphoria" for me. Thus the times as a kid I'd binge in my aunt's raspberry patch, just eating, eating away until it caught up with me and I was just sitting, sitting.....all day on the toilet.

3. I was never asked to prom, thus I never had a prom dress. That pretty much sums up my appeal to the opposite sex during high school. It's OK though, my mom's story of starting her menstrual period in a white dress at her prom with a nightmare attempt to get a hold of feminine hygiene supplies with no success kept me thinking I could possibly be fine without prom in my life...she definitely wishes she had.

OK...now this post has gone a bad direction with bodily functions. You're probably wishing we were farther than half way through this tag...

4. I've only worn high heels once (other than playing dress up)...it was to a Christmas Party in 2005 at my friend, Jen Schow's house. There's a reason it took me so long for me to attempt it, and another reason I haven't done it since. It's best for everyone to keep my heels as close to the ground as possible.

5. No matter how hard I try not to, I HAVE to look at road kill as I drive by. How gross is that? Katherine said at one point she did too, so maybe this isn't too unusual? But for some reason I see it as a lump from a distance and think "look away, just look straight ahead that's nothing you want to see"but then I always have to look at the last second... "deer? rabbit? cat? hopefully a nasty possum?" This bad habit/ guilty pleasure? has become more prevalent since living in Missouri...hopefully I'll be cured when I live in an area with less animal life squashed on the side of the road.

6. I hate to waste...anything...I'm a little obsessive about it. Those who live in close quarters with me for too long will confirm. I went through a period of using minimal water when I showered so I'd get wet, turn off the water, lather up, rinse then turn it off again, put conditioner in my hair, then turn it back on to rinse that out. This drove my older brother crazy who was waiting for me so he could use shower: "What the heck are doing in there? Taking 10 showers?" Apparently every time he'd hear the water turn off he'd get up and head to the bathroom, only to hear the shower turn back on as he'd arrive at the door. After three trips he was ticked.

My best friend in college saw me taking notes on this pre-used sheet of paper and asked "What are you doing. I see plenty of fresh paper in your notebook." What she couldn't understand, even after explaining, if you take a piece of paper covered in writing you don't need anymore, you can flip it 90 degrees to "landscape" position and write across the lines and previous writing with a different color pen and thus you get two papers in one. OK, I admit that was excessive to save one stupid piece of paper.

This all seems like a weird collection of things that make me unusual...not sure this is what the tag was supposed to be.