Where’s The Line?

Have you ever done something that you’ve really heavily invested in, be it money or time and effort, and just kept having things go wrong? There comes a point where you have to decide to either just scrap that investment and move on or keep dumping into it hoping things will eventually fall into place. When do you find that breaking point where you scrap it all? Do you ever?

This is where I feel BG’s dance studio is at. Sort of. It is so damn complicated.

I’ve mentioned before what a normal year looks like. Two large shows with both a dress rehearsal night and a recital night. Prior to that is the excitement of getting costumes and having a big event with picture days. All of this after lots of class hours in the studio learning the routines.

This is so not a normal year, obviously. Apparently, it isn’t all because of the virus and issues radiated out from that, either.

We learned yesterday that a second costume BG was supposed to get, her assistants’ costume, is different than what they initially ordered. This is the third one that I’m aware of at the studio and BG gets two of them. The first one that got changed, the ballet costume, is… just not like anything they would normally get. I won’t say it is awful, because it really isn’t. It is just really plain and basic and that isn’t a direction they go in choosing costumes. It was kind of a disappointment to pretty much every single girl. We don’t find out until Sunday what the assistant costumes look like.

I’d heard that this may just be a problem with the vendor in general that was an issue before things started shutting down and not even directly related to the virus.

They scrapped the costume entirely for hip hop early on and are just going with a t-shirt and the girls will wear their own dance pants instead.

Those 2 shows are now 5 and only parents of the kids in the classes for that specific show, not counting the girls that do opening tap and assistants (they have their own show and BG is one of those), are allowed to attend that show. Normally anyone can go to any show and it isn’t a problem. They have had to resort to issuing tickets and limiting each family to 4 to ensure that they can keep the people in the audience distanced. Because of that, we cannot be at all 5 shows that BG dances in, only her one assigned show, making us scramble to figure out the logistics of it all when normally I’d just go and be at the venue the entire time.

That requires a whole other host of problems that cropped up in the issuing of those tickets. Even with them doing all the numbers and leg work to make sure every family had the opportunity to get seats and still have extra room, a few of those shows still “sold out” (they are not charging for these tickets, it is only a reservation kind of thing) leaving some families unable to get seats. I don’t know if that is because there was some sort of glitch in their system or if some families just refused to follow the rules. I’m leaning toward a little bit of both.

They have had to scrap the usual class group photos for their picture day and are only doing individuals, of which we had to schedule appointments for each photo (one for each costume) and they cannot change at the studio. I have a makeshift dressing room set up in the back of my car so BG can change without us having to drive back and forth between the studio and home a dozen times.

These are just some of the more out there and obvious things that I personally know about. I won’t even get into the lack of mask wearing by a very large majority of the kids in the classes, a majority that grows with the age of the class apparently (meaning BG’s class has her and maybe one or two other girls that actually follow this rule) or the number of places I’ve heard of kids traveling, including out of the country and to states with high case numbers, and yet are still planning on returning to class as soon as they get back.

I cannot even begin to fathom all the time and money (at the very least, the cost of the extra costumes, but I know is actually so much more) they have invested in this. I’m absolutely certain that if this were just about any other studio, this would have been canceled when they couldn’t hit their original recital dates. I truly admire and appreciate every last bit of the effort they are making for all of these kids.

But…

Sometimes you really have to stop and wonder if the Universe isn’t trying to tell you something. I am pretty certain they feel like they are past the point of no return with all they have done up to this point. I get it. I really wouldn’t want to be in their position.

Sadly, it isn’t even close to done yet. We still have a few weeks before the recital and case counts are going up. Our mayor is probably going to be issuing a mandatory mask rule in public spaces in the next couple of days.

It is such an ugly situation with no good solutions. I am wondering how worth it is going to be in the end when the result is so very unlike what it would have been normally, especially if it is such a disappointment to so many people, like with the costumes. I don’t know that we are there just yet, but it is really starting to feel like it.

For today, I have to prep for pictures this afternoon and feel grateful I didn’t plan on getting a professional one of BG in her assistants’ costume because she doesn’t even have it yet. I’m still hanging by a thread on having her participate in the recital at this point. We’ve all discussed it and are watching the case counts and she is being a rock star at wearing her mask even when she feels so alone in doing so.

The closer we get, though, the more I really kind of wish they’d finally hit their breaking point and just throw in the towel. I also know that is so unlikely to happen unless it is mandated by health officials.

The stress from all of this is off the charts.