A Change of Direction

So for the last three years, I have spent 15 hours a week in ballet rehearsals and as of yesterday, I will not be continuing with that. I mean, I will finish the season through May but then I will be moving away from the most consistent dance performance job I have ever had and yesterday is when I solidified that decision with my artistic director. I have a lot of feelings about this (and nothing but gratitude for my time spent with the company) that I may or may not share at a later date but for today I will share on the importance of creative change. Up until now, you have probably gathered that I don't really like change. However, I am slowly realizing just how important change is to art making. Without change, we end up doing the same thing day in and day out. We end up trying to perfect our craft, sometimes to a fault. Without change, we don't have a need to think outside of the box because we live within a box that is always the same. I am realizing now that I have been stuck in a box that I put myself in-A box that I crafted and perfected. I have grown comfortable and complacent in this box and when I conceived my baby, I held on firmly to my box and the pride I had wrapped up inside of it, hoping that after my baby's birth, my box would still be there, perfect and untouched. Of course, that is not what happened because now there is a hecking baby in the box with me! Not to mention all the changes that occurred to what I thought of as MY box when I left it for a time (newsflash, some of the things in my box were not mine to begin with). Anyways, within "my" box, I thought I had wrapped up all that made me, me. But the truth is, I never belonged inside that box and the box I had called mine for so long wasn't quite right. So I am here to say that I am ready to think outside of that box. Sometimes you need an outside force to shake the box up so that you can get out of it. Sometimes you can make a choice to shake things up all on your own. Today I did not move towards my own creativity when it comes to Gastropod or my next creative callings (more on that at a later date) but I did shake up my creative box tonight when my husband let me cut his hair. It was so freeing and joy filled and when I was done, we laughed until we cried...My next creative calling is definitely not haircutting. But alas, this simple creative act made me think differently. I am starting to think differently again-Outside of the box that I put myself in.