Sometimes I wonder who I would have been had I never been a dancer.

I think about all of the ways I have been changed and shaped by a simple plié, grounding me after every step I learned. I wonder if I would have as much drive and as much perseverance as I do had I never spent hot summer days in windowless studios--six hours seeming too short, my body begging me for more.

And then, I wonder who I would have been if I hadn't quit.

Had I not sealed my pointe shoes- every last pair- into a box, had I not let my body get lazy and forget the sensation of aching with a soreness that comes from nothing else. Would I be even more driven? Would I have more integrity? Would I be able to speak my mind and have the same conviction I once did instead of sealing all of my problems into a box?

I wonder.

When my dance teacher this quarter asked us to share how we came to be dancers, I didn't know what to say.

Should I share that I remember nothing of the first ballet I saw, not unlike the way I hardly remember my best performances- that ballet is kind of like falling in love and moments, stopped in time, blur together until only our muscles and the tiniest cells in our brain remember them?

Should I share about my first pair of pointe shoes? How I wore them on the carpet- though I knew I wasn't allowed. How I think I would have slept with them, right next to my pillow if I could have, because I loved them that much...

Or should I share about the moments when I bent over my shaking feet, searing in pain, hardly able to keep my balance as I tried to alleviate the pinching feeling in them that made me want to scream?

Or all of the nights I spent crying into my mothers arms, helpless because of the pain I felt when teachers said things that hurt me more than any boy ever could, or even worse- when they said nothing at all?

I am helpless, of course, to share about these things, and say instead, a simple- "I quit because of school."

In a way, it is true. Each dancer comes to a time in their life when they have to make a choice- it's ballet- or it is everything else- birthday parties on Saturdays, late weeknights, college, feeling in your toes, and you must decide what is more important to you.

I made the decision that took me away from ballet. I left Saturday rehearsals in favor of time spent with friends. I left blood, sweat, and tears in favor of endless homework. I sealed my pointe shoes into a box and I never let myself think of it. I left my first love with 50 "dead" shoes and folded up leotards that have only accumulated dust over the past years.

I don't talk about it much. I might mention that I danced- or say something about pointe shoes, or how I was always sore, but never anything more. I never say anything about the way it felt. Never talk about the rush that came with finishing performances, that utter release a body feels when everything was over. Never spoke of the adrenaline that reached to my toes when music would swell and I would be flying through the air. Never spoke of the way dancing gave me a kind of peace- in its own special way. I never speak of the immense pain it caused me- not in the obvious way, but in the emotional way- of never feeling good enough, in working towards goals that were never attainable, and of giving up on the thing I thought I would give anything else up for.

Three years older, I now find myself stepping into the studio again. I am out of shape- though I have learned so many things in the years since I left ballet. My legs don't go to my ears anymore. I no longer can jump and land without my feet faltering.

I wonder if perhaps I was wiser then.

Ballet is just as complicated as anything else. It alternates between high highs, and low lows, as many of the best things in life do. It hurts like hell, for hours and days at a time, but somehow those few moments make it all worth it. I have never experienced such a lightness as I do when I jump, or when lights shine so bright that I can only see my own shadow on the stage. I have never known a love quite like ballet. It is like nothing else.

And it lets me let go.

I thought quitting dance was the best choice for me- and I still believe that it was at the time. It was hurting me more than I loved it. It didn't feel worth it. But now, as I go to class three days a week, sweat dripping down my cheeks and back, I make up for lost time. And ballet is surprising me.

Because it is healing me.

It is healing all the hurt that came after it and all the things that made me consider why life is so hard. It is healing losses and crushing moments in time, and it is letting me let go again.

Let go of my worries, let go of everything outside of the studio- and just dance.

It's the most special thing I have experienced, and though I wonder a million things each day when I walk into that studio, ballet has taught me that the most important of these things is simple-

Let go- and just dance.