Broken Promises

As I sat, looking at the piles of bills on my kitchen table, I tried like hell not to cry. I had been so close to paying off my car, and the plan was, once the car was paid off, I was going to start saving money to open my own dance studio. I had the whole thing planned out. I knew what area of the city I wanted the studio in. I had the layout of the place all designed. I even had a five-year plan for when I first opened. Sure, it was going to take some time to get the business up and running, but that was why I hadn’t planned on stopping my night job for a while.

Now that the club had blown up, I was out of a job, and for some reason, the rest of the clubs in the area weren’t actively looking for any dancers, at the moment. It was the perfect definition of “shit out of luck!” It probably meant that cocktail waitressing was in my immediate future, which I hated, especially considering that I would be low-man-on-the-totem-pole wherever I ended up. It was going to take me forever to pay off my car and start saving for the studio, now.

I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, now. ‘If only you hadn’t decided to go to that concert with Jeremy… you never would have been in that car, you never would have ended up in that accident, and you never would have dislocated your hip.’ The dislocated hip ended my career as a ballet dancer. I was supposed to be going to the USA International Ballet Competition that year and my ballet teacher believed that I had a really great chance at winning a gold medal. That was ten years ago.

Mom never forgave me for going to that concert and it became the beginning of the end to our relationship. I had always seen that my mother treated me like a commodity, her ride to the top. But, when I lost my chance to compete in ballet, I learned just how right I had always been. She pretty much stopped talking to me. It was as if I had planned the whole thing out, just to make sure she didn’t get to ride along. I just wanted to go to a concert, I was a kid, and we’re talking about a car accident… keyword there being accident! It wasn’t even Jeremy’s fault, even though Mom blames him. It was the truck driver that ran the red light and plowed into us.

Anyway… enough plundering into past, miserable thoughts. I grabbed my laptop, printed out a handful of resumes, and got ready to hit the pavement.