So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

I woke up at 7.56 today–four minutes before I was supposed to be at the studio. This is never a good start to a day. I skipped my shower and my breakfast and ran out the door to make it to the studio in a record breaking 14 minutes. In short, I was starved, tired and parched armed with nothing but a banana for sustenance for my five hour day. This coincided with my last day of teaching in Toronto. I teach 5 classes on Saturdays. For two of these classes, I have taught them from the beginning. It’s hard for me to look at them without having to swallow this feeling that I created them, or at least I created the dancers that they are.  Those kids have never given me a reason to yell at them, or be bored with their classes. Their speed and intelligence never ceases to amaze me and somehow just when I think I’ve pushed them to their 11 year old limits, they surprise me.

I told the girls that they were special to me. My very first class. The class in which I made mistakes, the one that I grew in. Well, I didn’t tell them that, but I sure was thinking it. I remember how afraid I was when I took their first class thinking that whatever they were as dancers would be a reflection of me as their teacher. But I shouldn’t have been so afraid. I got the best possible group of kids to help me through my first few years of teaching.

But it wasn’t until this year that they started to open up to me…in that they no longer look shell shocked around me and feel free to speak even when they’re not spoken to. This makes it especially difficult to leave. Starting September I won’t be teaching them. I’ll miss them when I’m gone.

Despite all of this, I wasn’t expecting much of a reaction from them on this front but at the end of each of my classes my kids said the best thing I’ve ever heard: We’ll miss you. And as cheesy as it sounds, it totally made my morning worth it.