My First But Not My Last

Hello everyone and welcome back! I feel like I am really getting the hang of this blog thing and I am actually enjoying it more than I thought I would! So, for today's blog, I wanted to talk about my first passion. This would be dance.

I started dancing when I was two years old. It was all I knew until I graduated high school and it was my first love. I danced at CC and Co Dance Complex from 2 to 16 years old. I started competitive dance when I was in the 4th grade. Additionally, I danced on my high school's dance team from my freshman to senior year. I got selected to be the Wakefield High School dance team captain my senior year as well. Clearly, I loved to dance!

Dance was such an important part of my life growing up and I couldn't imagine my life without it. I was at the studio every day after school and on the weekends rehearsing and taking classes. Dance was my whole life and helped shape me into the person I am today.

I learned so much from my time as a dancer. For one, I developed discipline and time management skills. I had to learn to balance my dance schedule, my schoolwork, and my personal life. School was always number one to me and something I took really seriously, especially when I got to high school so I really had to learn to balance everything to make sure I was still doing well in school. I also developed a strong work ethic. When I started competitive dance, we would have hours of rehearsals which sometimes got tough, but I had to push through and demonstrate my commitment to my team and to dance. Lastly, I learned how to work well with others. Unless competing in a solo, which is a dance where you are performing all by yourselves, all my routines were group numbers. This meant I had to work and compete with my team. We had to communicate, work together, and support each other within our routines.

However, I went through a tough time in high school when I had to make a difficult decision. This is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in my life. I decided to quit competitive dance at my studio when I was 16. I had this passion and it somewhat got lost as I got older. It was devasting for me because I didn't know why this was happening and I had to make a decision for myself. I decided to quit but I continued doing my high school dance team. I fell in love with dance team because it was very different than what I was doing at my studio. The style was different and it was something I found to be very fun and didn't stress me out as much as studio dance did. We got to dance on the sidelines at football games, perform at halftime during basketball games, and we competed in high school dance team competitions. During my sophomore year, my team and I went to Orlando, Florida, and competed at the Universal Dance Association National Competition for the first time in school history. We placed 14th in the nation that year!

I consider dance my first passion. It was my first love. I ate, breathed, and lived it. However, even though it was my first passion, it is definitely not my last. Even though I lost my passion for studio dance and competing, I still had my passion for dance as whole. As I have stated in one of my blogs before, I also have a passion for helping people and that is why I want to pursue a career in the healthcare field. I want to continue to figure out some other passions of mine and ones that I love as much as helping people and dance.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my first passion. I still love dance and wish I could do it more often. I hope to see you all next time!

-Anna Narducci