Justice is a woman with an absolutely beautiful heart, who loves her family and only wants to live her life being a dancer, a mother, a wife, and the glue that holds them all together. But what happens when the glue starts to not stick, and it can't support the family like it used to, everything starts to fall apart. When Justice recognizes that strange things are happening to her body the first thing she does is dismiss it. She finds herself researching and self-diagnosing and stressing because she knows that something deeper something major is affecting her body. After many doctors, many tests, over a year down the line she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Grief isn't always about the loss of life, many times it is about the loss of something that we as people value, like the ability for our brain to communicate to our bodies. As she works through her grief in an effort to be all of the things that she still wants to be successful at being she realizes that sometimes the person who's leading has to stop and let the pack pass them so that they can follow, be supported, and be held up. There are many days when Justice's body doesn't allow her to dance. Times when her body doesn't allow her to walk up or down the steps. And unfortunately, times when her body just can't go the way she wants it to. She soon realizes there is no fight too big when you have a loving family to walk through this time with you. And sometimes it requires you to close your eyes and use your memories as a way of getting through to the next day. Remembering that all things are accompanied with a deep level of unconditional love.
Missed Steps
(Scene opens with Justice, a woman in her mid-twenties. She stands for a moment shaking out her legs as if she is warming up, but the focus is really on her legs. Beat. She slowly begins to tap dance, is she any good? Her mind isn’t solid on this. She keeps tapping and finally catches her flow. The dance is not extravagant but rather well thought-out, simple and clean. She stops, smiles.)
Day-to-day, one day at a time, that's what we say to recovering Alcoholics or people who are working through addiction, one day at a time, don't rush yourself, don't think about tomorrow just focus on today. (beat) Focus on today. (slight smile) I'm none of those things but it's interesting how all of those things are a part of me now. Sometimes I find it difficult to think about today because I'm still thinking about all of the things I missed out on yesterday. Things I lost, intentionally. Things that scare me now. But my mother (smiles, laughs a little) she told me I was the glue that held us all together. The sensible one, the one everyone else could talk to, cry to, lean on. (beat) it’s a lot. I think mom thought it was a compliment and in the moment it was but you have to see it like I lived it. It’s like, when you look up in the sky on that perfectly clear night and you see one star shining bright. We think, “wow, that is a beautiful sight. But I’m thinking that poor star, up there all alone. With no one. (Beat) Sorry about that, but then my mother tells me that I can't go back and change it so I need to “live in the present, just live in the now Justice, live in the now.”