While growing up, dance was literally life. If you grew up dancing competitively, your childhood was slightly different than everyone else's, and no one quite understands how much time and effort dance actually requires. Most people will never understand certain things unless they were a dancer themselves, but dancing has definitely made you into the unique person you are today. Here are a few things all competitive dancers can definitely relate to.

1. You start your counting with 5,6,7,8 and look at people weird if they say 1,2,3.

2. By age 10 (maybe earlier) you knew how to perfectly make up your face.

3. You are a pro at putting on fake eyelashes since you've been wearing them from the early age of 5.

4. You sit in a straddle position to watch TV, or read, or study, because that is precious stretching time that should not be wasted.

5. You would sit in your grade school desk practicing your tap routine nonchalantly.

6. You thought you were a super star when you were called over the loud speaker to come down to the office when you had to leave early to go to dance competition.

7. People say diamonds are a girls best friend, but honestly rhinestones are. “Rhinestoning” is truly an art and you have it mastered.

8. The hallways of your house became a perfect place to practice your leaps, and honestly that was your preferred method of travel between the kitchen and your room.

9. Moving all the furniture to the side to use the hardwood floor in the living room in order to practice your solo was totally normal, and bonus points if you had foldable mirrors you could set up.

10. 95 percent of the time when a song comes on you say, “OMG guys I had a dance to this!”

11. You found it normal and totally second nature to eat your meals and do all your homework on your dance studio floor or in the dressing room during 10 hour rehearsals before competition.

12. Recitals were pointless to you since you've been doing these routines all year. Your family has seen all your dances so many times at this point that they can probably do the dances themselves, but hey at least you got a bouquet of flowers.

13. You have a whole shelf solely dedicated to recital and competition DVD’s.

14. You would show up to school the day after competition most likely half asleep, with glitter still stuck in your hair, and eyelash glue still stuck on your eyes.

15. You can whip up a perfect ballerina bun in about .5 seconds.

16. “I can’t I have dance” was basically your personal catch phrase growing up.

17. You have a whole bin filled with all of your old dance costumes, and no you will not part with them. They may come in handy one day.

18. Gym class was really just an opportunity to show off and drop into a split while you watched the rest of the class struggle to touch their toes during the warm up.

19. You would get so frustrated when your non dancer friends would ask if you "won" the competition over the weekend and you would have to explain for the 100th time it doesn't work like that.

20. You look back at your time as a competitive dancer and wish you could go back and do it all over again.