My Perfect Li(f)e.
Always center stage but no one saw me.
Everyone wants a perfect body, but how much is your weight truly worth?
If you ask any woman if she has insecurities about her body, I would bet they would all say yes. Those insecurities will all be different. They will all have a different image of themselves they’d like to see as witnessed through someone else. Someone they know or someone famous, it doesn’t matter. We covet the bodies of others while we disparage our own.
I grew up in Manhattan as a ballerina. I was thin, I was graceful, I had perfect posture, and I was stared at everywhere that I went. I was featured on posters all around Lincoln Center, poised and posed in painful positions — the image of beauty and grace.
But ask me how I saw myself and the price I paid for it.
Ballet was not my dream. It was just something that I happened to be good at — and believe me when I say that I hated myself for it.
My parents would brag that I danced before I walked as I smiled and nodded while silently berating myself that I should have just walked.
I broke a lot of bones and danced despite the casting without pain medication and with a smile on my face. I learned that the only way to express emotion was through dance and to this day, my…
