The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as

A Dancer

So kid, you want to be a dancer. Hmm--to do this, I'm going to have to start in your past--don't need to be a psychic to guess how that story goes...

You're the princess, right? Only child--or only daughter. There are photo albums full of you in little pink party dresses--applause for everything you ever did. You so wanted to be a dancer, so your parents put you in, even though most of the girls were a little older than you. You loved it--instantly. You loved the grace, the moves, the costumes, the music--you didn't even mind it when Olga snapped at you--called you a graceless cow, and said you were pathetic--what does a 7 year old know?

Time passed, and you got better--but so did the competition. You weren't expecting the back-biting and gossip to be so vicious--girls from better neighborhoods mocking your family station wagon, and wondering why you weren't going to the dance camp in France with the others.... Soon you noticed that the mean girls with the money were getting the best solos--the most time in front of the audience, yet you knew you were as good if not better than they were--but your dad didn't own a business that gave the dance company thousands of dollars worth of donations each year.

Fast forward a few years--you're one of the unlucky ones--puberty comes a little early to you, and you're carrying a little more weight--perfectly healthy, normal weight anywhere else--but it isn't good in a dance company. You probably grew a little taller than the other girls too--what are you now--five-nine? No matter, you were determined not to let it get in your way--no Olga's, or any of the other sadistic eastern european "teachers" who belittled your weight, your form, and your family's "dedication"--meaning you couldn't afford the extra classes and the summer camps--none of that was going to stop you, was it.

So here you sit--in my office, wondering if you need to go purge before that half-bagel your mother watched you eat in the car on the way here starts to digest--but that will have to wait--you need to know what's coming next.

You'll keep on dancing for another year, two tops, and then you'll attempt suicide after you don't make the company--you just don't have the body for it--even though everyone outside of dance tells you that you look great, but maybe a little thin--you go through a series of prescribed antidepressants with varying degrees of success--you try yoga, meditation, tai chi--but you're still laying awake at night hearing Olga call you a cow, over and over. Eventually you get healthy enough to go to night school to finish your high school equivalency, and you decide that if ballet wasn't for you, maybe you can still make a living with dance--you go audition for shows with cruise lines, kids travelling story theatres, and more--but you just never really developed much stage presence in all those years of prancing about on your toes and listening to abuse--you've hidden your pain and emotion for so long now you need to show them you can't.

Eventually you head to Las Vegas--you've got the looks to be a showgirl, and you tell yourself that topless doesn't cheapen you--it's just french beach attire, but somehow a bit more of your already limited self-respect is destroyed. You never quite have what it takes to make it as a front line dancer there, and varying diets and plastic surgeries just distract you from the dead end your career is heading towards. You finally wake up one day and realize that you haven't danced on a stage without a pole for three years, and the offer from "executive escorts" is beginning to sound like a viable option...

You snap out of it, pack up, and head for home. You're done with letting other people judge you, and you're going to take control of your life, and start with a symbolic action--you head back to your dance company--you're going to give Olga a piece of your mind for the hell she put you through. Problem is, you're a month too late--Olga's dead, but the company manager remembers you, and ends up offering you a teaching job--you'll work with the novice ballerinas group. You're thrilled--you can help end the cycle of self loathing among young dancers...

Unfortunately, your programming goes deeper than you ever realized--who is that chubby girl in the back row? Doesn't she realize that her thumping about on stage is distracting the real talents in the group? What are her parents thinking--they should put her in Irish dancing--they like a heavy step. You find yourself singling the girl out for criticism, along with others like her, and you sleep fine at night...

Others might not understand, but you know that somewhere, somehow, Olga is finally smiling at you, and that's all that matters.