Once upon a time, I was a small child clinging to my mother's leg while staring wide-eyed at the open dance studio in front of me. My sister danced, so I was to dance as well. I glanced up at my mom as she interacted with the other people around her, talking to the other moms with the other little girls who also happened to be clinging on to their mom's leg.

"Alright everyone, let's go in and dance!" Miss Metta chirped at us.

We all filed in slowly and quietly. I was trying to act like I wasn't crying. My legs were so itchy in my pink, starchy tights and my toes are squished in these leather little slipper things. My leotard was hugging my hips and my hair was chilling around my face, too short to be put up in any way.

We danced.

I watched the "big girls" when they danced, dreaming that one day I might be able to dance half as good as they could. Standing back between the wings on stage, I would watch as the girls walked around on their tiptoes with big tutus and hair pulled back violently into high buns with fake curls. I was amazed.

"I wanna dance like a big girl, Mommy," I would say to my mom. She would nod.

Nine years later, I was standing in my ballet class, the ripe age of 13, staring at my feet. Strong, pink, boxlike shoes encompassed my feet and I was terrified. I had been waiting ever since my first dance recital to be able to go en pointe, and it was finally my time!

Miss Metta kneeled on the ground as we slowly rolled up en pointe. She pushed our feet and our ankles into the positions they needed to be in. We worked mostly on breaking our shanks and boxes in and learning how to walk all over again.

We were literally back to square one. Once you go en pointe, it's like you are starting completely over and have to learn every move yet again. We were only up there for about 15 minutes before it was too much for us to handle and we begged to be back on flat feet. I was finally a big girl.

It was no secret that I was a good dancer, we all were. The girls I was dancing with I had known since that first ballet class. We all were so passionate about pointe and dance that we hardly ever complained, even when our blisters burst and our toes turned bloody.

As time went on, we learned something about my feet; they are very strong. I was going through the shanks on my shoes like it was no one's business. My boxes would just start to get broken in (the part where your toes are) when my shank (like the arches of your shoes) was split in half.

That got real expensive and real painful real fast.

I performed my first dance en pointe in our 2014 recital. It was to "Believe" from the "Polar Express." We had gorgeous blue relaxed tutus, complete with armbands and hair pieces. We felt like ice princesses. We felt beautiful.

(Jessica, on left, myself, on right)

We learned more and more, and before we knew it, it was our next recital in 2016, my final recital. My group of girls that I grown up with decided on a very edgy pointe dance. It would be something quick, hard, something that no one would expect. We were all ready and prepared to do something that would redefine pointe for us.

We put on our pointe shoes and danced to 2Cello's version of "Smooth Criminal." We were dressed in white shirts with black ties and suit coats, finished off with a single glove on our right hand.

It was a very hard dance that left us completely out of breath and amazed at what our bodies could do. I watched as the little girls would watch us from the wings, wide-eyed and amazed at what we could do. It was humbling.

My senior solo was done to "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy. You already know that it was done en pointe, in a black, laced sleeved dress that was completely open in the front to reveal black shorts. To top it all off, I had bright red pointe shoes.

Yet again, I watched as all the little girls watched me and talked about that one big girl with the red pointe shoes. They wanted to be like me.

So, little girls standing in the wings staring at the big girls as they dance, go on and work your butt off to be just like us. If you're lucky, you'll love it and dance will end up saving you more times than you can count. If you're not, you'll grow out of it by the time you hit middle school, and that's okay. If you don't love dancing, then don't force yourself to endure the pain.

Pull up, smile bright, and perform strong, it's what you were born to do.