Poem – Leaving the World of Ballet

 

The time had come to retire from the stage,

To leave behind the magic and the pain,

To step away from what had been my life,

And find a new path, and a new self to claim.

 

For years I’d felt the calling in my soul,

To shift away from what I’d always known,

To leave the world of dance and take another path,

And find a new place where my soul could roam.

 

But how do I leave the one thing that had been,

My constant in a life of ups and downs,

The source of joy and purpose, hope and dreams,

The one thing that had kept me flying on the ground.

 

I knew it in my bones, three years before,

That I would need to take this fateful step,

To leave the stage and find another door,

And learn to live in a world that’s not so prepped.

 

But still, the fear was there, the doubt, the pain,

The fear that what I had might slip away,

What if in outer world, I’d find no magical domain,

And all my magic would just fade to gray.

 

My father’s words came back to guide me now,

To never depend on anyone but me,

To have a plan, I took a vow,

To find a new way that I could be.

 

There had to be another space of grace,

Where flaws were simply part of the game,

I knew I could be myself, in any place,

I could show how the flawed could be fabulously framed.

 

I now could see that I had a plan,

To leave the stage and enter a new realm,

To find a way to use the skills I had,

And be the good magic that could overwhelm.

 

And so, I opened up a brand-new door,

That I knew would lead me far away from dance,

It wasn’t easy, to leave something that I adore,

To find a way to let go and take a chance.

 

For in the end, it’s not about the stage,

Or all the magic that we feel within,

It’s about the courage to turn the page,

And find a new beginning to begin.

~Suzanne Wagner~