Not all of use are as confident as we may appear. I feel often that I am a walking mirage of a successful person.  A woman on the edge of their renaissance, dripping in their own intoxicating brilliance. More honestly I am a scared little girl playing dress up everyday with a hope that maybe someone out there will like me. I wonder how I can be so self involved and yet so self doubting. 

—You are about to read a rambling of self awareness as an opening to what will eventually become short stories, poems, journals about the creative process, and visual landscapes to share what I need to create. Now, ladies and gentleman, let’s return to our regularly scheduled vapid ramble that should probably be things said to a therapist — 

I remember the duality between narcism and depression is a familiar feeling most people have. This is why people change as they age, like all things change with passing time. I am both comforted by the thought of other people being as existentially overwhelmed as I feel  and also underwhelmed by my own normalcy. So what does any 20 something do, we cut our hair short and shape shift into the next bespoke, hand crafted, blob. 

To do what, you might or probably will not ask? Drum roll for an eloquent answer….wait for it…it’s well researched…

Being patient enough to just do what makes me happy each day until something sticks. To let doors open for me with love, and passion, and light because I did not force it to happen out of spite.

Yeah that is it…I am at the point where I am trying this new thing where I do not make concrete plans, I do not involve other people in my grey plans, and I just show up and do the work. To try everyday to not force myself to stick to a long term plan, while also not  just not having a job (unfortunately I am not an heiress). To be comfortable with the majority of my paid work not having anything to do with dance anymore or even art for that matter, for a bit. I know that I will be a monetarily successful artist because my desire to create, to have relationships in that way, to exist in that way is very strong, but I may need a detour for a season. 

Lets unpack the much darker internal dialogue that has been going through my head since the passing of my uncle in September of 2020, 7 days before my 26th birthday, and 6 days before the 2nd season of The Ballet Clinic. 

My uncle, Philip Andrew Clum,  was a beautiful man, in the unconventional understanding or maybe it is what the conventional understanding should be. He was generous and kind, angry and sad, loving and lonely. He loved what he loved fiercely with no apology. He felt excitement in the purest form, loud and communally. He loved me very much and I loved him more than I have the words to describe. More than I told him, more than I showed him. This will be one of the largest regrets of my life. He was extremely creative and bright. The world pushed him down over and over again and he kept getting back up. Getting up, even in small ways is a quality I hope I inherit, or maybe have inherited. He kept finding people, things, ideas to give his love to and for that the world…even if they did not see him the way he deserved to be seen…the world is better because he existed. I am becoming better because he existed. He died before I could repair myself before I could get my own head out of my own ass. When he died it started a ripple in my heart, my mind, my spirit. Am I the kind of person I want to be, am I living my life.  

I have spent my whole life an aimless dreamer, feeling deeply, hiding deeper. Wanting to be exceptional, and stagnating myself so I do not have to feel the sting of rejection. It’s funny because I feel rejected so often, I feel so un special, so small, so insignificant, but I want to be seen so badly. An attention seeker by nature, with a soft doughy exterior. Attracted to all the things I feel most insecure about: beauty, intelligence, resourcefulness. There is the part of your brain which understands that life is and will always be unpredictable. You can only control the second you are in and even then can you? Patience is a virtue is an understatement. I am waiting for waiting, I am looking for looking, I am scared to be scared. For a moment I forgot to be grateful because, damn, I got exactly what I asked for. What I did not really think about is if it was what I really wanted. 

Easily swayed into the idea of urgency and bruised by the genuine need for approval I often put on someone else’s skin to see if I can get the part of them I like as a part of myself. (Here is a hint: you cannot and will not become someone else. (Here is a bigger hint: the closer you become to aligning yourself with their life the more disassociated and overall ill you will become) You will however become a cheap impression of them with non of the life skills to pull off their perception of reality.) I try on their aesthetic so I can fit in with the world I will now be apart of. I move my schedule around to accommodate their needs, dreams, fears, and hopes. The most serious of them all, I convince myself that their life is my life. That if they get what they want I will feel connected and content because I also got what I wanted, right? Call it a cute character flaw, but instead of letting myself be aimless, I aim straight for what someone else was decisive enough to move toward.  

In the wake of this little flaw, in the real world that has been my life. I found myself become bitter towards those I wanted to and silently promised to be the sweetest to, my students. I felt myself relapsing into how I could be; how I was sometimes with my uncle. Cold, moody, impatient, and the worst of all lacking in empathy. This was not who I wanted to be. This was not the vision of myself I had had as a child. For someone who’s everyday is being around children, I had not asked myself what young me would have thought of me. When I ask the question, I can see her warm round face, she would be proud of all I’ve accomplished, but she would find me sad. She in that moment would be afraid of the teacher I was. She would feel too critical of herself because I was judging too harshly without the support and appreciation she needed. She made me wonder if I ever really wanted to be a teacher or if I had been casually steered in the direction. And I feel objectively, a direction that I am not bad at. I have had moments in my life where I was steered to be a teacher by teachers well as peers and other moments where life has confronted me about the direction in its entirety. So I return to my younger self and ask her, what next kid? She would urge me to sing more, to do more things for just me, and tell people what was in my heart. She would be wondering when it was our turn to be the #1 person in the day? She would say just being ourself is enough for whoever needs it. I think she would feel like taking care ourself first is the only way to return to the act of giving to people. She would say  we should be giving to people because we want to not because we were scared it was the only thing we were good at. 

So baby Ashley, this change and all the changes I will make over the years are always for you. You are a good person, even if you have bad days. You are loved, even when you tell yourself you are not. You are capable, you do not have to be a master to share what is in your mind and heart. I am proud of you, I love you. 

As I sit here writing this, a beautiful large moth landed in front of me, delicately place on the edge of the black curtain. Still, but obviously restless. It had finally realized it was trapped in a space which may have been large, but suffocatingly the wrong fit. Before it can find the fresh vastness of the open air it will inevitably be stuck between the black curtain and the glass window, pining over the unknown with a relentless fury. Will it find its way outside? Will it not only survive, but thrive in that air it so desperately needed? 

I guess we will just have to wait to see.