I have LOVED Jennifer Lopez since I saw her as a back up dancer on In Living Color. I have seen every show, every movie, listened to every album, and gone to every concert I could afford. I am a FAN. So you can imagine my excitement when I learned that our 10th grade dance class would be dancing to the her hit song Love Don’t Cost a Thing. This was my moment to live out my inner JLO!!!!
Now is a good time to take a quick sidebar and explain a few things before I dive deeper into this post. In 10 grade ten at our school, students were given the option of taking dance or gym class, I choose dance. I have always been overweight and the idea of running sprints and playing sports of any kind did not appeal to me. I mean I could follow a beat so I thought “this will be a breeze!”. I thought wrong. First off, I can dance but soon learned that I cannot follow a choreography to save my life. Secondly, I realized I had just thrown myself into the lions den. I am Canadian and grew up in Eastern Ontario. There aren’t cheerleaders here like most places in the United States and so our “cheerleaders” are the dance girls. They are the queen bees, the popular ladies, and often the mean girls (not all of them but a good percentage). It gets worst, all of our school grades participated in the twice yearly talent show. That meant that for a solid week, twice a day, we would perform our dance for other schools and parents and I didn’t even get to be in the same dance class as my friends. I was TOTALLY out of my element, alone, being bullied for being overweight (I was a good hundred pounds heavier than any of the other girls in class). My weight also meant that when the school ordered costumes for the performance, nothing was in my size. My mom bless her heart, had to sew and bedazzle me a top. I was being bullied and ridiculed Monday to Friday, had a homemade bedazzled top that looked nothing like the rest of the girls in class and now had to perform 10 shows as the class’s final exam…awesome.
My dreams of embracing my inner JLO were not coming to fruition. I cried a lot and faked illnesses to get out of dance class. Then a few weeks before the end of the semester, my teacher let me know that I was failing the class since I was not able to complete the choreography and had missed too many days. That final blow destroyed. That Friday night I came home, binge ate every junk food I could find, cried, said some truly terrible things about myself to myself, and went to bed.
Then Sunday morning I woke up and realized that failure was not an option. I had two weeks left before the talent show and four weeks left in the semester. I may not be a petite amazing dancer but damnit I was witty and smart. JLO wouldn’t go down without a fight and neither would I! On Monday morning I went to class early and submitted my proposal to my dance teacher. If I could host the talent show and sell a minimum of 400 tickets she would give me a B+. She agreed but added that I had to dance in the performances. I countered stating that I would dance at the very back, near the end of the stage, where it was fairly dark. She agreed, we had a plan. Next up I needed some of the popular senior boys to co-host with me. It would guarantee ticket sales (everyone loved the cool senior guys; the guys wanted to be them, the girls wanted to look at them). So I mustered up my courage and asked the two most popular grade 12 boys to co-host with me. They initially declined but then I reminded them that for a solid week they would be surrounded by all the dance girls from grade 9 to 12 AND they got to be on stage and make jokes. They agreed.
For that whole week, I co-hosted and dance that choreography with all I had (in the back, out of sight, with my homemade shirt). I passed that class with a B+ and a few battle scars.
THE LESSONS
#1 – I do not have JLO’s body or her looks but I can sure as hell all embody her work ethic and her refusal to take no for an answer.
#2 -High school sucks for pretty much everyone. So if you are in high school reading this, please know that it gets a hell of a lot better. I am sure you’ve all heard the saying that most people who peak in high school really don’t look so great in their later years. I can tell you now with certainty at 38 years old that saying is very true.
#3 -Don’t compare yourself to others. They can never be you and you can never be them. Find your sparkle and let that mother fucker shine.
Until next time,
T.