Yvonne Foong: Fighting NF

My ballet teacher was also principal of the ballet school. She was Ms. Lee Lee Lan who founded Federal Academy of Ballet. Her class always performed the main item at the annual concert. I disliked her costume designs, including this one in the picture above.

I did not like the multi-layer tutu that flared out like an umbrella. The high waist made my short body shorter.

It is among my most treasured belongings today. They say you only learn to appreciate things when they’re gone. This ballet costume is so precious to me now that I cannot dance ballet anymore. The shoes I wore in this picture were soft ones I used in Grade 5. If only I could wear my Grade 6 pointe shoes. But the spine surgery changed my right foot and ankle orientation so that toughness of pointe shoes would make it unable to walk.

When I showed my childhood photos to a friend, she said I approached the wrong person. Aunties appear not to like her because she wouldn’t play with their kids or praise them. My friend does not like children.

Those of us who are able to look back, do so because there are things in our childhood worth cherishing. Although as a kid, my parents were stressed and their bad temperaments affected my emotional self, I am able to reminiscent my childhood and smile at the things with which I sought refuge. Ballet made me feel worthy.

Human life is a continual process of growth. From birth to death, we learn new skills and make milestones at every turn. I learned to feel congruent and special from dancing. While the rest of my classmates were assigned to perform more active and rapid pieces for exam, Ms. Lee always let me perform the more expressionist piece called, ‘Arts Studies’, or some other name, memory is failing me. I could shut out the audience, the pianist, the examiner, and channel my emotions into dancing. In my last and final exam, I fell down dramatically from performing the Pirouttes but still managed to score well. The English examiner commended my expression.

Ballet made me happy. But I must let go when my health failed me. Yet when there are things we can keep in the present that makes us happy, many of us choose to let them go. When we find something or someone that makes us smile from the heart, should we let it go?

Why can’t we keep what makes us happy? True happiness is so hard for some of us. Why do we have to let it go?

I don’t want to let it go. Tom in ‘Made of Honor’ doesn’t want to let Hannah go either. And he’s doing all he can, to win back his happiness. Let’s watch Made of Honor and be inspired. I am going to the Advertlets’ Special Screening on 17th June 2008 at TGV 1Utama, starting at 8:30pm. Come join us! Click here to learn how you can win 2 free tickets for this event.