Sometimes your life path and purpose can be staring you smack in the face, and you still can’t see it! I sure couldn’t without some extreme, divine assistance, as you’ll read below. Perhaps, like I did, you’ve complained, “My prayers aren’t being answered. I asked for a sign about what to do with my life, but nothing has happened.” The Universe responds, “Oh for Pete’s sake! How much more obvious could I make this? What do you want, a roadside billboard? Alright, alright. I’ll send down a helper or two to give you a little nudge. That’s how much I want you to do what makes your heart sing.” You have to keep your eyes and ears open. The signs may be all around you if you’d only pay attention.
Enjoy the next excerpt from
by Kristi Lynn Davis
Performing was my soul food and dance my identity, but I was also an excellent student from an academic family. My parents were stable, scholarly types, and I always assumed I’d follow in their unfancy footsteps. I knew I’d become a college graduate as surely as I knew I’d grow up to be a woman. As valedictorian of my high school class, I was expected to do great things—to lead the people of this nation, earn a Nobel Prize, end World hunger, or discover a cure for cancer. At the very least, I was supposed to do something that would make my parents proud. Something as frivolous as dance, I reckoned, did not fill the bill.
So, with my passion for performing smoldering on the back burner, I ended up a stone’s throw away from home at the University of Michigan where I schizophrenically flip-flopped from engineering to business school to finally settling on a degree in psychology for lack of a better option. Before long, however, I was itching to dance again, so I auditioned for and joined a student-run dance company called Impact Jazz Dance (See pic above. I’m on the far right). Little did I know, this one ostensibly minor decision would cause me to meet a young woman who would jazz up my life tremendously and wildly impact my future dance career. Her name was Jenny.
On the surface it seemed that Jenny and I couldn’t have been more different. She was an outspoken, lanky, 5’10”, Bohemian, ultra-feminist, worldly, New York City native, who had apprenticed with the American Ballet Theatre in New York. I was a shy, curvaceous, naïve, Midwestern, Disney-esque, ex-cheerleader, sorority girl trained at a modest local dance school. It seemed we had little in common except our love of dance. She regarded me with slight disdain due to my affiliations with the Greek sorority system and my prior relationship with pom-poms, but I found her fascinating, though a tad intimidating.
Jenny and Kristi Lynn Davis, New York City, 1987
As our time at Michigan came to a close, my friends and I ruminated about life after college and began preparing, like the other seniors, to get a job. What on earth was I going to do? Following the herd, I bought the proverbial interview suit: an expensive, conservative, gray wool blazer with knee-length matching skirt, high-collar ruffled blouse, and sensible black pumps. Feeling like a kid pretending to be a frumpy, middle-aged accountant, I attempted to play grown-up and get excited about finding employment, assuming responsibility, and buying a house some day.
I poured over the printout listing job interview opportunities offered by the myriad companies eager to take on a Michigan grads. Do I want to be an actuarial? What the heck is an actuarial? How about a headhunter? A marketing assistant? In human resources? Sell insurance? Perhaps I should vie for one of the coveted corporate positions with Proctor and Gamble working to make neon-green dinosaur-shaped fruit roll-ups more profitable? Or apply to be a sales rep for Del Monte fighting over prominent grocery store shelf space for fruit juice and canned peaches? What can one do with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology anyway?
The thought of choosing any of these careers gave me a splitting headache and put me into a gloomy funk. For the entire week following graduation, I cried. I loved my social life at school with my sorority sisters and the zany, outgoing, artistic, talented friends I’d met through Impact Jazz. My life had been full to the brim with activities, events, and parties. Every day offered a new and exciting adventure. What do I have to look forward to now? A boring, predictable existence where my sole purpose in life is to make money? Settling down with the sensible folk? My stimulating student lifestyle had come to a screeching halt. I was the proud owner of a top-rate education but had no idea what I was going to do with it.
To make matters worse, I pondered the imminent end of my performing days and distressed over whom I would be if no longer a dancer. I couldn’t think of anything else that made me special, that separated me from the rest of the population, that gave me worth. Terrified of losing myself if I quit dancing, I spiraled into a deep, dark pit of despair. When Jenny asked, “Kristi, what are you going to do after graduation?” I stared blankly into space. “Move to New York to become a professional dancer with me,” she commanded. Faced with seemingly dire career options, I actually considered her offer.
Jenny was abandoning her major—mathematics; she realized her true love was dance. Manhattan was her hometown, and she could always live with her parents if worse came to worse. What did she have to lose? More importantly, what did I have to lose? I hadn’t the foggiest idea what would be in store for me if I flippantly threw away my stuffy business suit and college education for a sexy leotard and dance class. Was it wise to turn my back on the relatively safe, comfortable, practical world of nine-to-five and venture into the wild unknown of show business? Would I be heading blindly into a Bermuda Triangle of thespians, likely to mysteriously disappear with the other reckless show biz wannabes, never to be seen on stage again? What should I do?
With a seemingly useless Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and no clue where my life was heading, I took a month-long, soul-searching backpacking trip through Europe. Discovering a world full of fascinating people, places, and experiences, I was impassioned, inspired, and couldn’t wait to see what the next day would entail. I felt so alive and wanted that spirit of adventure to stick with me forever. When I returned home I had my answer: “God, I’m a dancer. A dancer dances!”
What makes you feel so alive? If you look, listen, and feel carefully, what signs are showing you the way to your dream life? Perhaps you have an angel, like my Jenny, who is trying to get you to wake up to how talented you are at something.
Thanks for reading. Pack your bags and get a good night’s sleep, because next week we are heading to New York City!
Shuffle on,
Kristi
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