The thing about the dance world is you're always told that you are replaceable; you are never enough. The hard thing dance has taught me is that I will never enough in any aspect of my life. Don't get me wrong, I love to dance, but the development at a young age of knowing you will never be enough and that you are replaceable have damaged me in my former teen years to create the young women I am now.
Being a dancer is a constant struggle of doing what you love but yet always being told by the world and the people around you, you can’t or never will be is something I’ve grown accustomed to; being told you're worth nothing basically. Is it just me, or is the stress for perfection is the killer. You can tell me I'm perfect and beautiful but that doesn't matter to me after years of being told how I should look, what I need to gain or loose to be successful in my career choice. When I look in the mirror I see all my imperfections taunting me such as not a good turn out, a little fat in my legs, my middle not getting as toned as it should, not skinny or delicate enough to be a ballerina.
The stress and anxiety/depression I deal with, and the suffocation of the life out of me is something I love. I'm not sure if it is supposed to hurt this bad because, really, it hurts like hell. God. I feel like I'm being suffocated. Ironically people go, "You have it all: the body, height, and the legs!" But do I feel that way? If you were me, you would see how I view myself. I'm terrified to stare too long in the mirror. It's a reminder that I''m not perfect. You might ask why is it that I stay with dance, but honestly, I can't see a life without it. When I'm alone dancing, I'm free. Yet, over the summers and the years, I was being constantly told what was wrong with me: everything from my body and steps. People were telling me what I could improve, but it put me down.
College for a dance major is balancing everything from assignments to dancing and a social life while keeping a sane mental state. Requiring anyone to withhold such pressure is insane. Nine classes within a semester, coaching hours, and rehearsals would lead most to their breaking point. I am able to just get through the week with barely being sane. Until Thursday, every two or so weeks, I'd have a mental breakdown where I wouldn't be able to get out of bed to face the world. Most days, I had conflicting voices in my head saying, "Should you really eat that," "no you can't have soda," and the struggle of realizing how little of a number of the weight 114 is, but to me, I felt the constant need to go down. I live off of caffeine. Pain medication is for my feet, where I have denied I was in pain till it got the worst it could be. In fear, they would replace me. Knowing that to be true, barely any sleep and no breaks in the middle of the day thus proving myself maybe I need to suffer in order to be the best. I convinced myself of this a long time ago pain when I was dancing, it was so good that I became numb. I thought it was good until it was so bad that the pain would break through the numbness.
My recovery is that I learned that I deserve to love myself, I need to dance without fear, yet knowing that I can be replaced and thrown away still haunts me. I can't let it affect me even though I fear of being thrown away by my friends and the people who I love. Being the broken girl shouldn't be my fear; it should be proof that I'm surviving. I am a dancer but not just a number. I have self-worth; loving myself will be hard, but I can, and I will.
