Years of grand battements, grand jetés, and pirouettes went down the drain. All with the slam of a car door.

Flashback four weeks. The music absorbed me, as I overlooked the surroundings of the taxis and city buses in the concrete jungle known as New York City. In a city of over 8.2 million people, I, for once, was alone. All of the stresses of school and work were wiped away with the world below me. My legs, roots connecting my body to the floor. My arms, the baton of an orchestra conductor, moving with the rises and falls of the beat. However, with one sudden jerk, I was snapped back into reality. A sharp pain rushed through my body like an earthquake, my shoulder the epicenter. Next, the worst decision I have ever made, I continued to dance.

Two weeks of constant throbbing and the inability to breathe brought me to my weekend vacation down the Jersey Shore. The bright blue skies and endless grains of sand immediately brought my mind back to dance. All of the sudden, like a bird out of its cage, my lungs expanded and the shortness of breath was gone. The beach magically transformed itself into my studio, high above reality. I began to leap along with the music playing in my head, until once again my body shuddered. As I was landing, one of legs planted itself into a small hole of sand and I lost my balance. The pressure of my fall sent another earthquake rippling through my body, this one of a higher magnitude.

The next eight days passed as if they were eight years. Every second, an eternity. Every breath, a lifetime. Each day I woke up with a new hope that the pain would magically go away. One day in particular, however, stands out in my mind.

After my first day back to school, I was getting into the car with my mom. This just so happened to be my first dance class of the year and I was overwhelmed with joy to be back in the studio. But lately, I had been going through life slower than usual so I would not overexert myself. This day, unfortunately, we were in a rush, and in a second of stupidity I flung the car door open. Pop!

“We are very sorry Victoria, but it seems to us that you have broken your first rib and sprained your shoulder. You can no longer dance until further notice.” My heart suddenly dropped. I kept thinking to myself, this is just a dream. Hours later I woke up I realized this is reality. I felt as if the world around me had shattered. The one true place where I could express myself to the fullest was no longer there for me. Now I realized what it is like to be truly alone.

The car ride home that night was twenty minutes of silence mixed with tears. The following weeks I began to realize how dance was not only an enormous part of my life but how it was able to change it drastically in the blink of an eye.

Agnes De Mille once stated, “To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.” Flash forward nearly five months. Like a child taking his or her first steps I slowly began to regain my strength and confidence and felt as if all the stress was melting away. I was finally back where I belonged. My body was finally one with the music and I was not only able to express myself, but I was able to feel beautiful again.