I don't know if i'm just being paranoid, or if my intuition is trying to tell me something, or what...? back story: I danced from 22-26 and liked it for about the first 6 months. Then it just went downhill and the last few months included every-night vodka drinking and more than one incident of crying outside the club because I was so frustrated with making shit money and dealing with rude customers and I was just burnt OUT. Then I went back to school and promised myself I would never go back to dancing.
Now- I just graduated and I've been out of work for 4 months (not because of the economy or anything I'm doing wrong- it's because I went to school in Ireland and in a health profession, so the process to have my degree recognized in the US is long and there's a lot of red tape and I have to take a test to be licensed in the US). I have no money and almost $2k in credit card debt because I've been living off my credit card since I came back to the US in January.
Last week I went back to the last club I worked at before leaving for school- it's a stage-only club, very low drama, no need to hustle, clean and drug-free, great coworkers and managers.
So I'm supposed to be working tomorrow night and I'm dreading it. i keep going back and forth in my head:
don't be ridiculous, go in and make money. you NEED the money. and all you have to do is go onstage and do a tipwalk a few times a night, what could be easier? And it's a tiny non-corporate club that doesn't do 1099's or anything like that.
but i'm upset because I felt like I had left this behind, I don't want to be a dancer anymore, and I'm paranoid about somehow ruining the professional career that I worked and sacrificed so hard for, for the past 3+ years.
you're being ridiculous. it's not at all likely that anyone would ever find out if i worked there for 2-3 weeks. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do things you don't want to do. 'i don't want to' is not a valid reason for me to punk out and not go back to the club when i'm in such a mess with money and there's not a thing wrong with this particular club.
But idk, the fear of somehow being 'found out' if i go back...there's no future for me in dancing. I would hate myself if i went back and something went wrong and i jeopardized my future career. I don't know if my bad feelings about going back are justified- like if it's my intuition saying 'don't do it, something bad is going to happen if you do', or if I'm just being overly paranoid.
I don't know. If you were me, would you suck it up and go in tomorrow night, or not?



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and this was really helpful to read and think about! At first I was ready to go in- I got dressed, put on makeup, and actually got in the car and started driving. But then I started thinking- I'm not a different person. I'm the same person with the same character flaws as when I was dancing- maybe this means I'm too weak-willed, but I know that I would fall back into the same patterns right away. Dealing with problems or bad feelings by getting drunk, and worse- being complacent (I hate this about myself, but whenever I have a 'fallback plan' or safety net I get lazy and 'stuck' and don't work as hard to get to my real goals.) 
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