Dear Readers,

If you’re anything like me– and I would hazard a guess that you most certainly are– then you’re starting to think about all of the things that you want to accomplish, start, or create in 2025. Recently, I’ve been reframing this thought from a list of “things” into an idea of the kind of person I want to evolve into in 2025. Somehow this mindset shift is really helping me cope with the idea that while time is moving so, so fast, the goal is always evolution into a better self. 

At the same time– as artists– there is so much pressure to always be improving; to keep reinventing yourself so that you stay relevant, young, pretty, appealing, and on and on to an audience. This feeling that my youth is running out is one that I feel chasing me constantly, stepping on my heels every time I close my eyes. If I’m being honest, I’m still making peace with it. It’s a fear that was fueled for a long, long time by the people I was around, but one that I know other dancers can relate to. I imagine that if I constantly feel this way at the start of my twenties, then artists at different stages of life must feel it ten-thousand-fold.

It can feel suffocating sometimes, as if we’re all rats in one giant, convoluted maze. Is this our fate? To be constantly consumed by our insecurities? To walk the tightrope between madness and magnificence until our heels bleed? To measure our worth by the decibel level of applause; our goodness by the amount of honey-dripping, sickly-sweet praise we receive?

If you feel this way, dear reader, then you are not alone. In spite of this feeling, perhaps the most lonely, alienating feeling to ever be felt, you are not alone. 

Perhaps this is just one of the many conditions of being an artist. We are imperfect by nature, and it is our imperfections that enrich our art. It is these elements that draw our audience in; that make our audience feel the twisting emotions we feel. It is these imperfections that make us compelling artists capable of telling a story. There is a poignant beauty in how much anger and sadness and grief and joy and exuberance and peace and chaos we contain within our bodies as artists. 

The gift of creation that is bestowed upon us is just that– a gift. For better or worse, as artists, the gift of creation is accompanied by the natural condition of evolution. We are constantly transforming. Some of us become different individuals every night, allowing a character’s identity to sink into our own. Some of us spin our raging rivers of consciousness into the costumes we don, while others hammer words of love and hate into their bones. 

We are so many things, so many people as artists. Inside our bodies, there are multitudes of us; as if we were trees split open to reveal a history of concentric rings. 

A tree cannot be any less a tree, even if it tried. Similarly, you, dear reader, cannot be made into any less of an artist, regardless of internal or external factors. You are as much an artist by the natural condition of the world as a tree is– and will always be– a tree. Find solace in the fact that no one can take away your gift of creation because it is who you are. 

I wish I had an answer as to how to end the aforementioned feelings of inadequacy. I don’t. I am not sure that anyone will ever have an “answer.” 

What I can offer, however, is that you may be able to look at it differently. Just as you shift your perspective while composing or choreographing, shift your internal perspective. Our brilliance as artists is tempered by the depth of our deepest fears, but perhaps this does not need to always function as a handicap. Maybe it becomes another way to examine the wounds that are holding us back– an opportunity for introspection. Maybe it becomes a way for you to connect with other individuals, and form a community rooted in deep respect and understanding. Maybe it transforms into a metric of your growth over the years; an ancient enemy turned steadfast companion. 

Most days, I will carefully plan out the topics that I plan to write about. I will take into consideration which topics have done best; which emails I’ve received asking me to write about certain topics; which series I want to continue or wrap up. I sat down today to continue our series on the knee joint, but the words that poured out were different; words that I scarcely share with others. 

Dear reader, I simply let them. I let the words that wanted to emerge pour onto the page. I let my fears and my pool of grief emerge from the depths of wherever I stuff them down in my body. And I gave them space to simply be. 

That is my wish for you for this next year. That you evolve into a self that can simply be. Maybe that means something different for you than it does for me– and how beautiful that is! 

If you have made it this far into this post, then please do me one last favor. Inhale with me, and then exhale.

And then– just be.

(See you soon to continue our series on the knee joint (for real this time!))