An Artists work is never completed

Your typical "I carry" essay assigned for 12th grade

After reading Tim O' Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, it got me thinking. It had me wondering the things that I carry myself. I read about Henry Dobbins, Jimmy Cross, Kiowa, and Rat Kiley. I learned to respect the things they carried, and understand that I carry much more than tangible items. I not only wondered what I carried as a teenager, but as a human being.
I come from a home where winning wasn't what defined us, or made us great. I come from a pressure-less family that accepts what our own personal best may be. Whether its best in the state, or at a competition, or to a college is questionable. However, an honest attempt has always made my parents proud. I am art, I am a dancer. I carry the weight of my own need for perfection and control. I carry the weight of my own expectations my parents did not put on me. It may seem random, why out of no where I decided to place heavy expectations on myself in contrast of my family, but I don't think so. Wouldn't anyone want to light a fire for themselves? What else would?
I carry the burden of self discipline. I spend hours on end in a windowless purple room. After spending the majority of my day in a school setting, I am left to fight off the feeling of tiredness for the rest of the night. Dancers carry this because they understand they cannot just go home and complete homework. You don't separate the life into 2 blocks, School and Dance. Dance is always there with you as you breathe. I carry the darkness. As the sun fades away I am still working in that windowless room. The walls have 3 pictures hooked on them, of three dancers. I look into their eyes each day at the barre, and see the same struggle. The girl on the left is jumping. I would say she is flying, but I know better than that. At a first glance one would think she is free. But then look again, she is still chained to the ground by gravity.
It is a harsh reality that the girl next to me is always one step ahead. I think this can be a universal feeling. I have always been told, "Chloe, don't strive for perfection. Nobody is perfect." My parents have told me this time and time again. My dance teachers remind me of this because they just want dance to be joyful, its original intention. I carry the weight of comparison. No matter how big of an accomplishment I have made, there is always someone out there that has made a bigger accomplishment. It is a fact to me. To outsiders it may seem useless to "keep trying" at something you will never fully achieve. As a dancer I have a responsibility to perfect my art, similar to any artist. An artists work is never completed. Ask any poet when a poem is completed, or when a painting is done. I can guarantee you will receive a look of confusion.
My parents couldn't care less if I was the best or worst dancer. They do not give a thought to how many trophies I receive, or what color ribbon I get at a competition. (This useless stuff ends up in landfills anyway) What always remains is the experience of art. As Martha Graham said, "Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart." Dance is meant to express the human experience. I carry complex human emotions as an artist, as a human. I am my own instrument. I am what I have to work with. I can't rely on pens, paint brushes, or a camera to create dance. I carry the joy of movement.