This is Now || n.h

This is Now.

"Break a leg"

Something most people get told before going on stage. Generally it means do well, give it all you've got, or give them a good show. Not actually break your leg, or anyone else's.

When I was 14, I was told to "break a leg" and well, Im now living my life from a wheel chair.

I was a dancer. One of the best as I was told. It was my way to express myself. I'd compete every chance I got. Performed a million and one routines every year. Plus I only ever danced to my own voice.

I'm also a vocalist. I'll record covers of songs then dance to them. I was the only thing i'd dance too. For solos, duets, only though. If it was a group dance I have no choice for the music.

It was music and dance that kept me going and it was music and dance that made me stop.

It was during a competition. I was doing a solo to one of my own original songs. The song had meaning like no other. Trying to focus on the routine and the music at the same time for once didn't work right.

I landed one of my jumps wrong, something happened in my legs and hips and I became paralyzed from the waste down.

My parents, of course, weren't there. They never were. They couldn't help me. I just laid there in the middle if the stage crying silently. Trying to get up but it hurt too much. I remember everything getting more and more unfocused.

The music finally stopped and they noticed something was wrong. My coach, Breanna, was the only one to run on stage to get me. It hurt so much. I couldn't bare it.

Everyone then started struggling to help me but I couldn't see anymore and I couldn't move. I was hearing everything they said clear as day. But I couldn't move or see a single face.

Eventually I got to the hospital and stayed for almost a month before they let me go. Since then I've been in therapy and a wheelchair.

I'm 17 now and I'm in my last year of school. I couldn't go into real school so I just did it online. I mean I could've gone to school physically but I couldn't emotionally. I didn't chance seeing everyone's pity.

I hate being the pity party. That's all I was ever known as for a while. As for know I'm just a failure.

I'll always be that failed dancer in a wheelchair.

My old coach Breanna, toke me under her wing after my parents apparently passed away. Even though she was only two years older, she always a better mom than mine. Plus her sister is my age. Brooke. She's like my best friend. What am I talking about. She is my best friend.

Id do a lot of duets with her. She'd pick the song and I'd cover it. Breanna would help choreography and that's just how it always was.

Now that the routines changed, Breanna drives me to therapy everyday and Brooke's there to help me through it. Therapy Is hard and I hate it.

Times have been hard- really hard. Something always finds a way to keep me back from doing what I want to do.

And right now, my legs are holding my back from running.

You can't change the past.

Besides, that was then and this?

This is Now.