Invisible

Dance

If you couldn't tell by my amazing username, I dance.

Surprised? 

I didn't think so. 

I started dancing when I was two years old. I realize this seems really early to some people, but please note that I was walking and talking before I turned one, and reading by eighteen months. I was fully capable of taking a forty-five minute ballet class once a week.

Now, I take ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, and lyrical classes every week, and I'm trying to convince my parents to let me take another pointe class. I'm in the studio from five to nine Tuesday and Thursday nights. No breaks.

I want more classes. I really do. But with school (the IB programme is damn near impossible) it's hard to fit everything in. When I'm not at dance, I'm either in school or doing homework.

It's very stressful. I haven't slept in days. I'm supposed to be writing a psychology paper for my exam right now. I'm procrastinating. You give me hell for it all the time, but anyway.

I like to think that everyone has their own place. Not like, metaphorically "you have a place in this world" place. A real physical location on this planet (or maybe on Jupiter, I don't know, you do you I guess) where you go when you just need everything to stop.

My brother goes to this baseball field by his middle school and sits in a tree, just watching and thinking. I don't ask what he thinks about. If he wants to tell me, he'll tell me.

My mom goes to the library. She's a teacher. She could sit there and read for hours on end, but eventually she'll come home to work on lesson plans. When she goes, my brother and I know she's been through hell dealing with those nine-year-olds. We make sure to give her lots of hugs and chocolate when she gets home.

My dad doesn't have a specific place. He only lets himself disappear when he's really mad. He'll get in the car and drive around. By the time he comes back, he's okay again - or the car's run out of gas.

I'm kind of like my dad. I don't disappear by going somewhere. I disappear by dancing.

My lyrical teacher ends every class with improvisation in the dark. We all turn on the flashlights of our phones and the light bounces off the mirrors just enough so we can see each other's silhouettes. When the teacher asks what song we want, I'm always the first one to volunteer an idea. "One Way or Another" by Until the Ribbon Breaks. "She Used to be Mine" by Sara Bareilles. "Sweater Weather" by Max Schneider and Alyson Stoner. Every week something different. And for those four minutes, I'm gone. My friends always tell me that if I ever compete, I shouldn't practice any choreography. Ask me what song I want three minutes before I go onstage and I'll get first place, every time. I know they're mostly joking, because I would never compete and that's honestly just a horrible idea anyway, but I can see the glint of jealousy in their eyes when they say it.

I'm not sure what it looks like when I improvise. The teacher once told me I look like a completely different person. I believe it.

Because when I dance, when I'm not just performing choreography, when I really dance with all my heart and emotions, I'm not the same person. Not to them. They see me as fierce and sarcastic but totally sweet and caring at the same time. They don't see the train wreck hiding beneath the surface. So of course I look like a different person then.

But those four minutes are what let me be free. Ask any dancer, and they'll tell you all about that feeling you get when you're dancing and everything's just going perfectly and you can feel all those horrible weights on your shoulders finally lifting and it feels like flying. For those four minutes, I let everything that's been weighing me down fly away, one at a time. As soon as the music starts I let myself be weak, let myself show how heavy I feel. Every time, I start on the floor. I gradually make my way to standing, as all those weights disappear. By the end of the song, I'm standing, jumping, motions getting bigger and lighter and easier every second. In four short minutes, everything suddenly becomes so much more simple. 

Every time.

 You've never seen me dance, have you, love? You're always about to leave ballet class when my lyrical class is ending. Maybe one day Ashley will end your class early, and you'll see what I mean when I tell you "I disappeared" or "I lost two hundred pounds in lyrical last night."

I don't know what I look like when I improvise like that. I don't know if I'd be able to if I knew you were watching. I would get too nervous, too scared that you would leave me if you saw how quickly I can take off my mask so the darkness can see how heavy I am. I don't know if I want you to see me that way.

Regardless of whether you ever see me dance for real, I love you. You know that, right?

I love you.

(But I love dancing more.)