When you tell people that you ran away and joined the circus, people either laugh, think it's cool or comment on how it's hard/difficult/scary. Circus is cool, hard and scary. That's the beauty of it.
Yet the most common thing people ask is "why?". Sometimes I tell them, and sometimes I don't, because what led me to join the circus isn't a happy thing.
It sounds amusing when I tell people that I joined the circus because of a boy breaking up with me. It's a common catalyst to a 'crazy' decision. I mean, normally those 'crazy' decisions are cutting your hair or something and not running away to the circus. The boy in question, broke up with me in quite possibly the worst way imaginable. He slept with me, and broke up with me the next day. Shitty, right?
Well, I already wasn't in the best shape emotionally or mentally when this all went down. It lead to a very real plan to end my life, because I was tired of everything hurting in a way that tylenol doesn't help. I had recently purchased a car, and the year prior, while at a convention learned of a circus school in the city about an hour away from me. In the very real logic that I have at times, I decided that it was now or never to try a class, because I was planning on not being alive for much longer so really what was the worst that could happen? What's interesting, is how fearless you begin to feel when you've given up on living, so fearless that you do things that you'd never have done otherwise.
To those who don't know me, I was not an athletically inclined person. I have very little grace, and am a huge klutz. So when I told my parents... they were less than supportive because I never really stuck with anything athletic. Little did they know that I would somehow still be doing it 2 years later.
Walking into that gymnasium was incredibly terrifying, I wasn't in great shape, physically or mentally. Who knew that I was making a life altering decision? Halifax Circus, which is located in a church gym, doesn't look like much. It's truly amazing quality is it's people. I was at the lowest someone can get, I had 0 faith in myself, and had gotten very accustomed to the comments telling me that I wasn't good enough at something. "You're just not athletic", "You're not working hard enough" Always something instilling that I wasn't capable. Not so much in that gym. If I couldn't do something, it was always followed with a "yet". No one expected me to be amazing, any accomplishment was amazing because everyone had different abilities. I walked in that place a wreck who'd given up, and I walked out wanting to do more, with a new lease on life.
My first class was an aerials class, to which i quickly added in an acrobatics class to the mix. The people I met in that gym, for the longest time, I had no idea that they were the reason I was still alive, and smiling. No matter how crappy I felt, how much it took to drag myself there some days, once I was there, I felt better. This isn't to say, I magically stopped feeling terrible, I just had a safe space where I was allowed to cry and not having to force smile. The day my grandfather died, I managed to drift through school, pushing people aside because I wasn't wanting to fall apart. I walked into the gym, and without saying anything was being squeezed and told to relax.
This gymnasium is a safe haven for many. So many of us just go and exist there when we're feeling like a wreck.
There's an amazingly calming ability being in the air, and only having to depend on yourself to stay there. Even the most simple move requires practice, so when you finally nail something, it feels amazing. Watching others around you, just encourages you, because everyone struggles at something, so you don't feel like a failure. While others may struggle to do a bridge, they may have no issues with the splits. Some may excel at juggling quickly, others might take years to learn but have great ease at aerials.
It was only in the last few months that I told anyone within the circus that I joined the day that I had planned to take my life. It's hard to tell people that their existence is why you're standing here today.
When I feel like my world is falling apart, I tend to overload on circus, though there was a point this summer where I was struggling so much that I attempted to quit circus and the response by some of my coaches was to stop being dumb. (It was a necessary reaction)
My psychiatrist likes to say that I'm resilient, but while that may be true, I'm just lucky that I found a place that lets me fall, and miss the ground instead of hitting it. Halifax Circus and it's beautiful members taught me how to fly, and saved me in the process of doing what they do for everyone who walks in the door.
