I have been hiding from ballet class.
I wish that were a clever metaphor, but it’s not. I have been hiding from ballet class.
Every week, I book a class, and twelve hours before it begins, I cancel the booking. At first, I told myself it was for other reasons, like having work to do or people to see or rest to take. But by the time week six rolled around, I knew. I am hiding from ballet class.
I bought everything, too. The leotard, the tights, the shoes. Everything I used to wear once a week from the ages of three to sixteen, but in an adult size. Once everything arrived, I laid it all out on my bed, staring brightly at the clothing in front of me. Bubbling with excitement, I stared at the black leotard, the pretty pink tights and shoes, and felt a soft happiness in my heart, the sort that comes along with finding an old stuffed animal at the back of a closet and giving it a hug.
I put the clothing on. I tossed my hair up into a bun and did some twirls. I practiced my passés and pliés and pas-de-chats and remembered what it was like to stand on a stage and smile and spin and be met with applause and a bouquet.
I was a very good ballerina back then. I know I was. And I was excited to be one again. I wondered why it took me so long to do this again, why I quit in the first place when I found such joy in it. Why would I leave behind something that had been such a core part of my identity, my life? Why would I push the love for this art away for so long?
And then I saw the mirror hanging in my bedroom and remembered why.
I am not built for ballet. I am five feet tall and rounder than any ballerina ought to be. I have big thighs and a butt that won’t “tuck in” no matter how hard I try. When I do any sort of jump, I am aware that I am landing more loudly than anyone else, my flesh bouncing and jiggling even after I’ve touched the ground.
If you ask me why I quit ballet, I will tell you it was because I was busy with school. I was focusing on exams during recital preparation time, and it was just too much for me. I was growing out of it. I didn’t have the passion for it anymore. I didn’t find it fun in the same way I used to.
I must have been a very good liar, because everybody believed me. Sometimes I believed myself.
And then I remembered standing in front of the mirror before class, staring at my body as girl after girl walked in after me. They were so tiny it looked like a slight breeze might blow them away, like a real ballerina ought to look. And I looked like a monster beside them.
I didn’t want to be a monster. I just wanted to dance.
But I could not dance without seeing a monster.
And here I am, twenty-five now instead of fifteen, feeling the same way every time I cancel a ballet class. Will it end one day? Will I be here at thirty-five? Did I feel this way at five, when I was still wearing a pink leotard instead of the grown-up black one, practicing how to point my toes while seated in a circle instead of standing at the barre? It must have happened sometime between five and fifteen, because when I was five, I only remember loving ballet. I don’t remember hating my body back then.
I wish I could love it as I did then, only feel the way I used to feel when putting on the leotard and not the way I feel when I see the mirror. I want to dance like that critical eye in my mind isn’t watching. I want to book a ballet class and know I won’t cancel. I want to arrive without being affected by what I see in the mirror.
I want to look at the stage and the paintings and the photographs of long-legged, slender-necked dancers and not notice I don’t belong. I want to love the art without hating myself. I want to feel like a ballerina and not a monster.
I don’t want to resent myself for not being built for ballet anymore.
But how am I supposed to when everything around it reminds me I’m not? It’s not just the mirror. It’s the movies and the performances and the posters. It’s the sizing on the tights that’s just right for my waist but too long for my height. It’s the leotards that don’t come with a built-in bra and are cut in just the way that I can’t hide my sports bra.
No matter how kind people are, no matter how friendly the other ballerinas or the instructors or the audiences are, I know I don’t belong. Not in the way I’m supposed to. Not in the way I’ve always wanted to.
Maybe one day I’ll stop caring. I’ll flip off the mirror and put on the too-long tights and the sports bra anyway. I will stop trying to be a ballerina and just focus on enjoying ballet. Maybe I’ll get there before I’m thirty-five. Maybe it’ll take until forty-five. Maybe even longer.
But maybe it could happen, one day.
Until then, I’ll keep booking those classes and hoping I don’t cancel them in a week.
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