I have written and rewritten a casual caption to post with this awesome photo since it popped up on my facebook memories a few days ago. Each time I went to write that caption on instagram, it wouldn’t fit! I have since learned that you can only type so many words for your instagram captions- did you know that? Anyways, I couldn’t find it in myself to shorten or edit any of the details as they all felt so imperative to the story, so i’ve abandoned the task several times since then. I’ve never had that happen before on instagram. I never really post long things. I keep what I share to the “world” brief, professional and surface level. Safe and cool. That’s how I want to be seen now. Steady. As opposed to how I know I have been seen in the past by many if not all of my peers. All that I can say is that this photo has been haunting me for a week and on this rainy Sunday where I have no particular place to be, I think i’ll sit down and write it all out.

I spent the first eighteen years of my life preparing for the day that i’d get to be on Broadway, specifically a Rockette, but anything Broadway related would suffice. I was perfect for the job! Or at least that’s what everyone said. I had the body, the long legs, the big eyes, the easy stage presence. All I thought I had to do was wait to turn 18 and then go to NYC and audition. Get the job… and live happily ever after. That was my plan.

I used to watch “Annie” the musical on mute because 1) I hated the music and 2) I wanted to learn the street names and landmarks in the background so that when I got there, i’d be ready to go! I’d be ready to go! Anything I auditioned for as a kid, I got! (For the most part.) I once choreographed myself a phenomenally awesome tap dance routine to, “Janie’s Got A Gun”, by Aerosmith and was then identified as gifted and talented in the seventh grade. RAD. My sophomore year of high school I stood on the stage with all the other girls auditioning for High School Musical and when it was my turn to sing a capella… !?!?!??! I ran off the stage because I was so nervous!!!! However… I STILL got dance captain and cast as one of the supporting characters! Ha! I was also captain of my high school’s dance team for a brief moment and then was awarded a senior superlative as the most talented female, but couldn’t attend the ceremony to accept it because I had rehearsal that night. Teachers would give me extra credit to choreograph dances that had to do with the content area because I was such an awful test taker and needed the points. I was homecoming queen… It just seemed like everything was headed that direction. Easy. All I had to do was turn 18 and everything would continue to be golden, but on a larger scale. That was the plan.

I took dance classes in every style that was offered at The Dance Center in Independence, Kentucky until I was about 16 years old. The teachers there were angelic. The students were kind. No drama. We prepared all year for our one BIG performance at the end of the season, our dance recital. Most (if not all) of the music used in these productions was Christian and/or uplifting. I was generally in as many numbers as I was allowed to be in. I would clean mirrors or bathrooms in the studio to help offset some of the cost of my class tuition. It was simple and easy to be a part of that family- and I was happy there, but my teachers new of my big dreams. They encouraged me to take the next step in my dance education to better prepare myself for a career in dance. I was flattered and excited! What we came up with as the next right step would be to start being a competitive dancer. So at the geriatric age of 17, I became the oldest new member of the competitive dance team up the road.

It was hilarious.

I was by far the oldest and easily the most naive on the team.

I had spent a lifetime so far dancing for the joy of it at a sweet, recreation-based, Christian dance school where everyone was treated with love and respect, but now? These glittery little sharks were there TO WIN! And if mama’s perfect little angel baby didn’t come home with the PLATINUM medal? Oh girl, the moms would #complain to the judges and raise ten kinds of hell.

The other two “big girls” were maybe 14 and 13 and all the other dancers on the team were like 9. One of my first memories of taking classes there was being approached by a maybe ten-year-old, blonde, sass-machine wearing a diamond-studded bra… she walked right up and told me that I was standing in her spot at the barre, she said it’s ok because i’m new, but in the future stand somewhere else! Unreal haha.

I had never been exposed to such people. It was just like dance moms but in real life. They were serious though… and I just couldn’t get into it. It was comical at first, but ultimately just a really expensive thing that I knew my family couldn’t afford. So after one year, I quit and returned to the safe and kind dance center that I started at all those years ago.

Does everything happen for a reason? I don’t know. But I do like to think that Darci Wring Campbell was put in my path at the perfect time. Her first year teaching at that competitive studio was the only year that I was a student there. We completed one season together and then both of our lives pulled us in different directions and neither of us continued to teach or perform with that studio after one season.

Darci was the most legit dancer I had ever met at that point in my life. It was like she had just stepped out of one those dance movies I was obsessed with, Flashdance… Footloose… She was so cool. She was eccentric and passionate, she wore cut up tshirts and dark lipstick, she was loud and spoke of this man called, “Bob Fosse,” and had lived in NYC!? Had all these amazing stories to tell about New York and performing there etc. I became even more obsessed with my dream. My ballet body and edgy look was a match made in heaven for this sexy + slinky “Bob Fosse” style that Darci was so keen to teach us. I dreamt of doing this type of dancing on stage in a musical like Chicago.

She was so encouraging to me and just on fire to teach. Another more than notable thing to mention about Darci was her wild faith. I won’t elaborate too much on this because I feel weird talking about Christianity. But what I will say is that she definitely influenced me in that area as well. I will never, ever forget my time as her student! During that year, if I didn’t feel so before, I really started feeling like I was taking all the right steps to get to where I wanted to go.

So for my senior year of high school, having had one year of competition under my belt, I packed up and humbly went back to where it all began. I felt somewhat defeated, but I also felt like it was the right call. It was so nice to be back to the simple, safe and loving environment of The Dance Center. That’s when my long time teacher, Mr. Jerry encouraged me to go audition for “The Nutcracker-Jazzed Up”! What what that? It was a production put on by this awesome local ballet company in Cincinnati that I had never heard of! Ummmm, ok!?!?? So with all my recent jazz training and hunger to perform, my mom drove me to Oakley to audition for the Nutcracker! I would have driven myself as I had just gotten my license… but I was still too afraid to drive on the highway alone! Ha.

Long story short they emailed me back that night offering me the role of the Arabian, snowflake and a doll….

WHAT!?!?!?

This was before I had a smartphone or my own email account.

My mom read me the email that night and we both lost our minds… I will never forget the look on her face as she read it. I truly felt that this was my big break. My dad referred to it as “Baby Broadway” and I loved that. I read all about the directors that night and I just couldn’t wait to begin, this was it.

One step closer to the dream!

So September came and I was thrown into the glittery and treacherous pool of the ballet world and had to learn how to swim. Most of the girls there that were my age had been studying ballet very seriously for most of their lives, taking many classes per week. They were lightyears better than me from a technical standpoint. Somehow I didn’t totally mind. I loved every drop of it. Costumes! Props! Beautiful people. Men in tights?! False eyelashes! Red lipstick! Oh my gosh I had arrived. It was amazing. I loved every second of it from the first rehearsal to the last curtain call.

The show closed and suddenly I didn’t have anywhere to be, and I noticed that while I was busy with ballet, things had gotten pretty weird at home.

Christmas day that year, my parents announced, in the majestic glow of our Christmas tree… that they would be getting divorced. Mom would be around the next few weeks to cook meals and move things around, but would be fully moved out by New Year’s Day.

To make a LONG story short. Shit hit the fan after Christmas.

I started running… for that first year out of highschool, I lived somewhere different every 3 months. Lived with friends, family… whoever would take me. Until I got MRSA from dancing barefoot at NKU. That was awful. I had to have emergency surgery and was forced to go home and let the parents who I was furious with take care of me.

I eventually healed from that and was able to be part of the company’s next ballet production of "Giselle”. What an amazing opportunity. I will always love that ballet and that experience.

But…

I was a train-wreck.

I feel like now, at age 28, in the midst of a global pandemic... I’ve now had to slow down long enough to take a breath, reflect and be honest with myself about those years and properly mourn and move on from what would become the most tumultuous era of my life so far.

After the big Christmas announcement… when we got back to school, I skipped every class that I was able to get out of. I started getting so anxious all the time. I’d get to school on time and stand outside til after the bell rang because if I was late then i’d get lunch detention which was amazing! I hated going to the cafeteria and having to talk to people now. It was too much for me. I much preferred getting to sit in silence with all the bad kids each day and eat my food while watching Judge Judy or something on the TV. I retreated to the auditorium any chance I could. I craved alone time in a fiery, animalistic way. I started writing. Poems, stories, songs anything I could to try to get the anger out of me. I was so mad at my parents. They behaved horribly and us kids were shoved right in the middle.

I hated my dad for moving on too quickly.

I hated my mom for not moving on fast enough.

I hated that I had to help them justify things when no one was listening to how I felt. Sure they would ask. But they didn’t hear me. It was like screaming at a wall that refused to move. My sisters were dealing with things in their own way away from me, they felt gone. I felt more alone than I ever did before. I fantasized about not waking up because that felt easier than dealing with the daily life as it had become.

I couldn’t get through dance classes or rehearsals without crying. I exhausted my friends and teachers at the ballet school with a constant need for support and validation. They were patient until they weren’t. When they finally pushed back, I quit. Now my one true love, my escape, my dream had turned to poison and I was without an identity. Nineteen-years-old. Just dropped out of college. Parents were too busy creating new lives for themselves and ripping apart the old one to notice me. I was just left to figure things out.

I threw myself into a full-time serving job at an assisted living facility and without choreography to learn, rehearsals to attend and characters to hide behind, I just focused on making money. I didn’t like to talk to people about myself. People always loved to ask about dancing and things and I just couldn’t talk about it. I was ashamed that I had let my dream slip away. I was on the verge of tears at any moment from age 19 til around 24.

The kitchen at the assisted living facility is where I met two very influential people. Two chefs to be specific. One was a friend, the other was a predator. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but we won’t get into that today.

The friend was kind. She was in her fifties, I presume, and had a daughter my age. While we mopped the same floor a million times, poured ten million cups of “too cold” coffee or sliced a thousand strawberries together, she’d tell me all about her wild adventures at my age. I just listened. Talking became very, very hard for me. I was aware that every word out of my mouth sounded shaky and sad these days which would cause people to ask questions. I hated the questions and just kept quiet.

She told me all about the trips she took on greyhound busses when she was young. One time she had spontaneously moved across the country to work at a little cafe where she served scrambled eggs to cowboys. I smiled at her stories. I decided that I wanted to serve scrambled eggs to cowboys too. She encouraged me to travel and not to be afraid to go it alone.

That was all I needed to hear.

While the Broadway dream had died, or at least was muted… I was still obsessed with New York City, but I had never been. I had always been waiting for my parents to take me, but since they were still so preoccupied with pissing each other off, I put my head down and started working as much as possible for two reasons:

1) Being at work meant I didn’t have to be home. Home was now my mother’s unfinished basement where I could never relax.

2) I liked having money. Money payed for travel. Travel took me AWAY.

Life is weird. Timing is weird.

The first time I ever rode an airplane was by myself- I saved up, bought a flight from Cincinnati to NYC, figured out how to pay to park my car somewhere at the airport and drove my little pissed off self to Dayton, Ohio super early one morning, guessed my way through baggage claims and sat at the gate for realistically… about three hours before I needed to be there. I had never done any of that before and I definitely didn’t want to miss my flight. The flight was amazing! I loved being in the air. Taking off and landing kinda tripped me up a bit, but I was fine. Then… I was there!

You can kinda smell New York before you can see it, am I right?

To this day, if i’m out on a walk and happen to get a big whiff off a juicy, nasty, gross dumpster … it kinda warms my heart a little and reminds me of all the golden memories I went out and made for myself during these next few years.

I had dreamt of this city so many times, but now that the dream had died… I finally got to come here? It didn’t seem fair. It was like walking through a graveyard. I walked by all the places I had dreamed of performing- the Met, Rockefeller Center, all the various theaters etc. I stared at them, finally in person… and then walked on past. I took an afternoon to go see Steps on Broadway, the studio that I dreamed of attending for so many years… but now that I was here I was just numb. I stood across the street and scowled at the girls walking through the front door with the pink tights on and their hair up in buns. I was so jealous I couldn’t see straight.

So yeah.

I walked around my dream city by myself. Sat on a big rock in Central Park and spent hours writing everything out. Everything I hated. Everything I dreamed of. Everything I longed for. Everything I wish I could take back. I penned some of the darkest poetry I had ever written. So dark in fact that on many occasions I would rip it out immediately and throw it away because it scared me, but i’m proud of myself for that. I just had this feeling that I needed to be left alone to gather myself. So I did. I had been pushing my anger away for so long, busying myself with work and other mundane things, but now? In my mind, I cleared my calendar and invited the anger in to have a seat. I looked at it in the face and asked it why it won’t go away?

I chose New York to be the backdrop for this time of my life. New York didn’t heal me, I do feel like I kinda started healing myself though, all while sitting on her lap.

I figured out the subway, like I knew I could.

I dressed frumpy, like a boy, to keep men from messing with me. Which was kinda successful.

When I got lost, I figured it out.

When I was hungry, I’d eat packs and packs of those little, orange, peanut butter crackers until I at least felt a little less hungry. Why? Because I didn’t think to budget food money for myself. Beginners mistake.

When I needed a break from the words spinning in my own brain, i’d turn on Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill” and listen to it from top to bottom. And then listen to it again. And then again. She gave me power, she gave me anger, she validated me in a way that my therapist would 8 years later. She said, “YOU OUGHTA KNOW!” I was floored that a woman could speak her mind like that, I was never taught that skill. At this point it started occurring to me that i’m a writer and I play the piano and maybe I could be like her someday? Maybe that was the missing piece for me. I wasn’t fulfilled being a dancer - maybe that’s because I wanted to tell my own stories, like Alanis? But then i’d stop myself. Absolutely not. I couldn’t fathom the idea of sharing the songs that I had been writing with anyone, let alone a crowd. Then I would have to own and admit to having all the feelings i’ve had. Tell them to my parents? No way. So I dismissed the idea and kept walking around NYC dramatically, taking moody selfies and getting finding myself oddly fascinated by all the rats in the subways.

During that week I found myself (accidentally) standing in front of the marquee of the theater where Chicago was performed every single night!!! No… Way….. I had to walk in and look around. Chicago had been Bob Fosse’s baby… I had once been obsessed with that man and this show, remember? Although that was the old life. I was still curious. The feeling was still there. It was just shy to pop it’s head out now.

At this point I hadn’t been in a dance class or on stage for maybe a year if not more. The nice older gentleman selling tickets said hello to me and asked if I’d like to see the show?

I said I definitely couldn’t afford a ticket.

He was cool and said back, “that’s not what I asked- I asked if you’d like to see the show?”

I said more than anything but I only had like $15 I could spend on a ticket and I knew they were a hell of a lot more than that.

He looked at me long and hard, like the Wizard of Oz and then said, “SOLD!”

What????

He asked me my name and I told him.

He said he could tell from the moment I walked in the door that I belonged on the stage. He said that someday when I was a big star he wanted to be able to say that he sold Hillary Hahn a ticket to see Chicago.

Even as I type this out that just feels like someone else’s life. I thanked him and thanked him again. And then turned back around and thanked him again. Then turned to leave… and thanked him again.

I was so paranoid to leave that area, I was afraid i’d get lost and not be able to find my way back- so I just sat outside the theater all afternoon eating those nasty-ass, orange, peanutbutter crackers, dressed in my dude clothes with no makeup waiting for the beautiful people to show up and the doors to open! More than once, I reached into my pocket to make sure that the ticket was still there. I completely felt like I had imagined the whole thing.

Then… it all happened! I thought for sure something would happen, the show would be canceled, the ticket would be fake and i’d get kicked out… not the case. The doors opened. The people arrived. The lights in the theater went out. That nasty, dirty, sexy muted trumpet solo blared as I always dreamed it would and then 5678!!! The curtain came up and I sobbed for the rest of the evening. Like. A. Baby.

I cried the entire show.

These women were MONSTERS. Just absolutely gorgeous and confident and outrageously talented. The men were perfect. The theater was perfect. The costumes were perfect. Everything was perfect. I felt like that Celine Dion song, “it’s all coming back to me nowwwwwwwww!”

I wanted to dance. I wanted to do that. Maybe I could go back to it now? Maybe I was better?

A few days or so later I re-boarded that sketchy-ass Chinabus that picked people up from gas stations at like 2am in an unmarked bus, drove 3000 mph and DID NOT STOP for ANYTHING until they arrived at their destination, which was either Cincinnati or Chinatown/ Manhattan. I took that bus many times because it was $100 round trip haha, but oh my goodness- the memories.

So I got back to Cincy and felt like I was BACK and ready to pick up where I left off. I just needed a break, some space to do some thinking. So I started dancing again, but only at home. I started practicing singing more and more, accompanying myself on piano, getting books at the library on how to be an actress. Went back to NYC a few times, took some actual dance classes and just continued to feel like YES THIS IS WHY IM ALIVE!!! I jumped back into the ballet company I was part of, after an apology or twelve, and did a few shows with them, auditioned for all kinds of stuff on Broadway and just spent a couple years piecing things back together for myself. I lived in a hostel for a month and a half in Brooklyn (omg the stories I could and likely will tell about that!!!) but ended up back in Cincinnati. LONG story short.

So i’m 25 now and I saw an audition posting for a… don’t freak out… production of CHICAGO HERE IN CINCINNATI!!!!! NO FREAKING WAY. I lost my shit. I signed up for an audition immediately and decided if I was going to do this, I was going to do it proper. So you guessed it, I worked my ass off to save up another chunk of money… went BACK to NYC- took as many fosse classes as I could squeeze into my short trip, ran into Misty Copeland and Julie Kent at a class in STEPS (where I now felt very comfortable and took classes regularly) and then went to the world famous LaDuca store that I had glanced at back in my angry days and dropped every remaining penny I had in life on a $600 pair of the most perfect, Italian leather, black LaDuca character heels. Oh my word. These shoes were everything to me. This is what the big girls wore. I felt like buying these literally forced me to step into my dream, physically, become the vision that I always wanted to be, own it and rise to the occasion. I have since then become familiar with the idea of manifesting your dreams. I don’t know how much of that I totally buy into, but all i’m saying is… it doesn’t hurt to make those purchases sometimes.

Got back to Cincinnati.

Did the audition.

Got so nervous in the audition that I forgot what show my song was from so I said, “it’s that one show about a singing rat?”

Anyways, I got the damn job.

After throwing the show together, for one month I got to open the show every single night with this cute little pose you’ll see in the photo above. That sexy little trumpet solo I was talking about before? I got to embody that every night and open the evening with this saucey little sexy, kicky, dip pose thing. My choreographer would later tell me that from the moment I auditioned, she knew i’d be the one to play that part. Hell yeah!!

It was Heaven.

I got to learn choreo from a former Rockette.

Scream at an audience, “I BET YA YOU WOULDA DONE THE SAME”

Delivered my first ever monologue on stage, like with a microphone… and wouldn’t ya guess? It was in Hungarian haha.

Random.

Perform to a sold out house every. Single. Night.

We were given a standing ovation after EVERY. SINGLE. SHOW.

If that doesn’t heal a broken little heart, I don’t know what will.

Many times during that month, I left immediately after the standing ovations to rush downtown and literally clean toilets and bus tables after wedding receptions. Why? Because truth be told, I paid more for those shoes than I even got paid to be IN the show! Hahaha. It’s all good. I’d do it again. But I will never forget those nights. How it felt to be walking around those wedding receptions… dressed in all black, bussing tables, cleaning up tampons off the bathroom floor, knowing to myself what I had just done. I was still high on the applause. I floated around those ballrooms, not giving a shit about all the ridiculousness that the job entailed because I had tapped into something. I felt like I was BACK and doing what I was supposed to be doing again. I felt free in a way. Eye was back on the prize. I was unstoppable. Like the phoenix in Harry Potter, I had gone out in flames, re-invented myself and had risen from the ashes. What could possibly stop me now? I had learned how to stand up tall in the middle of a hurricane. Bring. It. On.

After the show closed, a couple of the cast members and I heard that Chicago on Broadway was looking to add to their cast!

You guessed it!

I didn’t need to hear another word. I booked another trip on that stanky bus and was headed back to what had really started to feel like my other hometown. This time, I was a little older, more experienced, more seasoned, tough, ready... I had felt the applause and I needed more. I had battle wounds on my black LaDuca’s and I was ready to show them off to the big girls in the big apple.

We waited maybe 8 hours… EIGHT hours… in a packed dance studio with so so many other girls ready to audition. We were all super hot. Both in temperature and appearance- we were dressed in our best black push up bras, dark eye makeup, red lips, fishnets, tits up, asses out… READY. We were like salivating, pacing tigers at the zoo, about to be thrown a slab of meat. You could FEEL it in the room.

Then a lady came into the studio and said, nervously that unfortunately the directors didn’t have time to see all of us and wanted to choose which of us would get to be seen based on our headshots... What???? Ok… ???? So I handed over my headshot/ bio which I knew was a bad photo of me… it was a selfie taken on my phone and printed off at Kinko’s a few days prior to the trip. It printed off a little sideways on the paper and looked like total garbage, but it was the best I could do. I had no money for professional pics. We waited for the girl to come back… there were maybe 175 girls in the room? Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less? She called out about 25 names… and mine was not one of them.

Hahahaha.

No way… I thought.

Well.

I felt like I was on autopilot. Kinda stunned…. My friend who had come from Cincy with me to audition, Alex, who I lovingly refer to as my Polly Pocket, did not get called back either. She is the DEFINITION of fierce. We both filed onto the elevator with the other hopefuls and didn’t look at each other. I was about to EXPLODE. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t even given a chance. Did they know that I had once again just spent ALL my money to come back to this stupid city? What an absolute waste of time. I distinctly remember hearing a girl in the elevator say something about how this was no big deal, it was fun to hang out with her friends in the room that day. I wanted to turn around and punch her in the mouth. The elevator door opened and Alex and I shoved our way out. We walked as fast as we possibly could to the crosswalk where we, once again, had to wait.

I was BARELY holding back tears at this point. My jaw was clenched. Lip was quivering. Hands were shaking. I couldn’t believe it. The walk signal turned on and all of a sudden I felt a little hand take mine. I looked down, suddenly taken out of my rage and saw that my sweet little Polly Pocket friend had reached out and held my hand. She had tears in her eyes and was looking straight ahead. That was it for me, the tears started to pour, again.

We crossed the street. I gave her a hug and told her I needed to walk this off by myself. We said goodbye and as soon as the opportunity presented itself I punched a bus as hard as I fucking could. Complete with a scream like an enraged jungle cat. I let the tears fly. I didn’t mind crying in NYC anymore, I had actually gotten quite good at it. You’re surrounded by people who have likely felt the same exact way many, many times before and who aren’t looking at you anyways because they are too busy focusing on their own shit.

I was LIVID! I was so sure this time. I was ready! I had literally just done that show to a packed house. I bought the shoes. I took the classes. I bought the stupid ticket and endured another horribly uncomfortable ride to this city. I was staying in a gross hostel, sharing a bunk bed with a weird stranger … and for what? They didn’t even give me a chance?!

I took the subway downtown and hopped off so I could walk over my beloved Brooklyn Bridge and started calming down a bit.

Just a bit tho.

I got off the bridge and bought myself a personal pizza and a thing of ice-cream at that fancy ice-cream shop by the pier.

I found a nice grassy place by the water and sat down with my goodies.

I had run out of tears.

I took a deep breath.

The sun was going down and the hot, Summer air was turning crisp and refreshing.

The food was delicious and I caught myself marveling at the beauty of Manhattan as she was starting to glimmer on the darkening water of the Hudson.

“You’re a bitch,” I thought as I stared Manhattan right in her face.

“You’re beautiful, but you’re a total bitch.”

The end.