There will be a point where I want to perform again.
I know this.
It’s not today. It’s probably not tomorrow. But it’ll show up like a cat on the windowsill — soft, insistent, familiar.
Performance will tug at me again, but this time, I want to answer it without the self-destruction. Without the body dysmorphia. Without the ego wounds. Without emotionally starving myself for the stage. Without treating rest like failure.
But that’s a puzzle for future Rain.
I don’t have all the pieces yet.
Still.
Let’s open the box and peek at the picture.
Why do I want to perform? What is it about an audience that pulls me? Is it the applause? (A little.) The validation? (Sure.) The shared experience of live art crackling in the air like lightning that doesn’t hurt? (Yes.) The mind blowing conversations after a performance discussing the meaning of that one foot twitch on stage left as the music stilled? (THAT.)
But then I ask: why isn’t dancing for myself “enough”?
Because, okay, I do dance for myself. Every Monday-Wednesday-Saturday strength training is my communion and the other mornings I roll out of bed and offer my body to music in the dark. That’s church. That’s ritual. That’s enough — until it isn’t.
Because sometimes I want to be seen. Witnessed. Reflected back. Not for praise (although praise never hurts), but to know I’m there, real, in this world, in this body. Not just moving through life, but moving with it.
But here’s the kicker: do I need a “professional” body to return to stage?
My brain says yes.
The one soaked in perfectionism and old ballet trauma and performance reviews written in blood.
But my wiser self?
The one who stretches at 4am and whispers kind things to sore joints?
That self says: no.
That self says: maybe the new version of performance doesn’t need to be in a theater.
Maybe it’s a warehouse. A field. A camera. A collaboration.
Maybe I get to define what a performer looks like now.
Maybe performing healthily means the body I have, not the one I punished myself into.
Maybe I perform as I am, not as I think I need to be.
But maybe — and this is the big one — maybe I don’t solve this today.
Maybe it’s okay to leave this puzzle unfinished on the table, walk away, live a little, love a little, dance a lot.
And when the cat shows up at the window again…
…I’ll know if I’m ready to step on stage.