Cameron Taylor is an independent, strong-willed girl who happens to have a knack for violence. After completing her junior year at UCLA, she's not looking forward to spending a Summer at home. Besides having a dark past that she keeps locked away fr...
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I was certain of only one thing in my life.
That thing was dance.
It kept me grounded. When I felt like I was being pushed in all directions, ironically, moving in all directions around the studio made me feel stable.
It's been a coping technique of mine since I was a child. It began with a four-year-old me spinning around my living room, blasting Barbie music, and letting all emotion flow out of me whenever I got upset.
I was never the child to throw temper tantrums. I learned from a very young age how to put a leash on my anger. And to this day, dance still is what helps me organize my emotions.
That's why summer has always been a hard time for me. Being a dance major means I get to do what I love on a daily basis. But that does not include summer break. Most people adore summer for the free time it provides to spend with friends and family. My summers include moving back home for three months, seeing my mom occasionally, and not being able to dance.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still find a big space in my house and dance til' my heart's content, but it's not the same. For three months I miss the wide-open studios, the crazy schedules, and the even crazier teachers.
Being at UCLA is a dream. And my dream gets put on pause for three months out of the year.
As for my mom, she works as a nurse so I don't get much time with her. My mom and I have always been close, she's one of the few people I truly love in this world. Since I'm an only child, she signed me up for actual dance classes when I was younger so I wouldn't be lonely.
It never compensated for the fact that I wish we could spend more time together.
After my dad died, she got a few weeks off of work to mourn. And as bad as it sounds, those were the best weeks of my life. We spent every minute together. But that pure bliss ended when she had to go back to work and I had to go back to school. Soon after, the emotional downpour from losing my dad finally caught up to me.
So what did I do? Threw myself into dance and pushed all emotions deep inside myself.
So the idea of moving home for summer is all fun in games until I realize that I only get to see my mom for about 2 hours a day.
The other downside is that I have to leave my best friend, and only friend, Taryn. Her parents live in Colorado, so she goes home to them every summer. Taryn has been my roommate for the past three years. We met freshman year and became inseparable. She's also a dance major so we had a lot of classes together.
Although, this year is a bit different. Usually, it's super hard for us to say goodbye for the break, and there are always tears shed on her part. I don't cry. But this year she got a new boyfriend about six months ago. They're always hanging out so we've drifted from each other. We only talk when we're in our dorm or in class. It also doesn't help that the last time we had a full conversation was an argument over said boyfriend that ended in her saying, "Maybe if more people could tolerate you, you'd have more friends and wouldn't always bug me." We apologized the next day but it definitely left a dent in our friendship. So this year I'm not worried about it too much. If she wants to throw our friendship away on a guy, it's her loss.
