Redlining Stress Levels

The last few days leading up to recital are always stressful, but usually tempered with a lot of excitement, both on my part and on BG’s part. This year’s stress has been multiplied exponentially in so many ways and almost none of that is because of excitement, which is so damn sad.

Last night was dedicated to going through every single piece she would need and making sure it was labeled.  Always a pain because you know some things are already labeled, things from the previous year and some that they’d gotten earlier in the year, but you still have to check every single thing. We have to sift through it all and make sure we aren’t missing anything.

Part of this process also requires a last fitting on all costumes and accessories (hair pieces, gloves, whatever) to make sure I don’t have to do any adjustments or modifications to make sure not only does everything fit right, but that it fastens securely. I was forced to do some major last minute alterations to a costume a few years ago, like we are walking out the door last minute, and I swore I’d never do it again.

The whole process is like planning and packing for a 2 week long vacation to another country.

Just to get an idea, she has 5 costumes, 1 T-shirt, a leotard and dance pants, 2 hats, 2 hair pieces, 2 pairs of gloves, a pair of earrings, 3 different types of tights, 2 different pairs of tap shoes, a pair of jazz shoes, ballet shoes, pointe shoes (and all the inserts and toe pads to go with) and a pair of tennis shoes. These are all just the obvious, required parts to what she has to wear on stage. That doesn’t take into account all the extra things she needs to have on hand and all the back ups (tights especially) just to get through all the performances.

Or the masks. Do not get me started on the utter nightmare that makes of an already stressful mess. We had to run through options for shoving it down the front of costumes if she couldn’t make it work to wear on stage (our solution to a pile of them on a table). So fun!

We only went through the costume stuff last night. Even that still needs to be organized in a way that makes it easy for her to get to what costume she needs when she needs it.

Normally, she only has to be prepped for about 4 hours or so of time for each of the two days. This year, because of the need to break down the sizes of the shows, she will be at the venue for nearly 12 hours, so we also have to plan for additional things like food and the fact that I won’t be there but for a few of those hours so she has to figure out things on her own if something comes up. She doesn’t do her own hair so if there is a problem, and having to do things like hair pieces and pinning a mask in place is going to create problems, she is going to have to solve it on her own. That means more stuff to try and pack.

You should see my list of things she has to make sure she doesn’t forget. A whole host of those things are things she has never had to take before.

She is of course stressed more than normal, which is a lot because she is a stresser normally. She wants to wear her mask on stage, but it is not an easy thing at all. The biggest issue is of course the costume I made these to go with because it also has a hat. With the mask and the hat, you see her eyes, if you are lucky. There are so many issues with the logistics of it that it is going to be a problem. I spent probably an hour last night trying to get it to work to her satisfaction and we didn’t really find a solution.

I honestly don’t know how these girls aren’t going to be absolutely dragging by the second day. They are going to be dancing so much through all of this. So much more than normal.

Over the course of two days, she will be performing:

Opening tap, 10 times
Regular tap, 2 times
Ballet – 3 different dances, 2 times each
Pointe, 2 times
Hip hop, 2 times
Jazz, 2 times
Assistants, 10 times

Those can run anywhere from a few minutes to well over 6 minutes (assistants and opening tap are the longer ones) for each performance. Most of those aren’t any different than normal, but the opening tap and the assistants dance get performed in every show and there are SO many this year. It is so much that the kick line they normally do in assistants has been scrapped for the faculty because the owner, who is in her 70s, said that she can’t do the opening tap kick line and the assistants kick line that many times, so all of the faculty opted to not do it if she couldn’t be with them.

When you look at that, the time BG is at the venue, the time she is on stage (and may yet do so without a mask, depending on circumstances), it all has so many potentials to be problematic.

Then combine that with her role as an assistant where she has to not only be an example to the younger kids, but to help them follow the rules, get ready to go on stage and help herd them where they need to go and you are talking about a stress factory of epic proportions.

The studio told the assistants especially that they have to be very careful to wear their masks at all times when they aren’t on stage. If the venue sees this rule not being observed, they will shut it all down. I’ve added that to my list of worries because I know how so many of those girls have treated the mask rule inside the studio. There is a very real chance that someone will be an idiot at one of the first shows and shut the whole thing down for everyone else making all of this work and effort for nothing.

I do want the opportunity to get to see BG perform. I’m exited for that. It is all overshadowed by how stressed out I am about how many things could go really wrong.

I keep thinking that I just need to get through this and I can relax back into my hermit mode for a while, but that isn’t the case. We still have a graduation to get through, one we STILL don’t know the plan for. On the heels of that we have to work on getting MC ready to go to college. I have no clue when my stomach is going to unknot and finally settle down.