Samantha Grossberg

Professor Murphy

WRT 114 – Creative Nonfiction

6 November 2022

I Hate Dance

I will never forget the nights I lay awake in middle school. Constant bubbles of thought after thought filled my mind as if it was my job to keep my brain running through the night. I flipped through scenarios like pages of a book, and even when I started to feel a surge of butterflies in my stomach, it would be hard to shake these thoughts out of my head. Anxiety is something that I have learned to live with, though I wish I didn’t have to. I understand that many things I let weigh me down are irrational notions I have created in my mind. It’s funny how everyone’s brain works so differently. It must be nice not to think that it is inevitable to fail an exam or that everyone has a personal vendetta against you for no reason. Because, trust me, irrational thinking has me in a continuous battle with myself. I get nervous about saying the wrong things on any occasion, though I have realized that we all say stupid shit sometimes. I am trying to become a less anxious person. It’s hard for me to shake these thoughts from my head. My mother always tells me I need to step back and evaluate what holds me back. But as I sit here with thoughts of nothingness, I feel like I am in a downward spiral. The definition of anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. But I don’t need an imminent event to spark my anxiety. The problem is that I have feared rejection since I was young. I think it stems from my now-lost passion for dance. I was never the ‘chosen one’ who got put on a pedestal and told I was the best. Quite the opposite. “How come Ali and Maddie are always put in the front?” I would think to myself as I waited for my name.

Every little girl wants to be a ballerina. We grow up wearing pretty dresses and tights and are infatuated with the idea of performing. At least I was. Bright spotlights shone on the effortless leaps and twirls of the dancers below—what a perfect vision. Dancers are clean and well-manicured, with gelled hair brushed back into a perfect bun, bright red lipstick, and seemingly flawless skin. A dancer’s figure is lean, one that can keep up with strenuous conditioning and look the part in any costume. In the competitive dancing world, a dancer will invest up to five hours every day in the winter and fall seasons just to see their work pay off during the competition season in the spring. The most exciting part of any dance is the costume. Of course, it is cool to watch your teachers take a song and choreograph a routine that precisely conveys its message. However, the cherry on top is the mystery of receiving your extremely over-the-top outfit.

 I will never forget my first ballet class. Well, I was too young to actually remember, but I have heard stories from my parents. I loved the idea of moving to the sound of music and felt so carefree. Truthfully, I think I felt so carefree because I knew I wasn’t being judged. Dance was an escape from the realities of the real world, whether it was school, family, or friends. If I were to walk you through a typical day in my life during the years I was a dancer, it would look like this:

7:00 A.M. – Wake up!

8:00 A.M. – Time for school

3:00 P.M. – School’s out

3:30 P.M. – Speedily changes into a leotard in tights and throws hair in a bun

4:00 P.M. – Dance until 9:00 P.M.

9:30 P.M. – Do Homework

10:30 P.M. – Bedtime

As you can see, I had zero time to preoccupy myself with anything else. Therefore I could shield myself from the toxicity of the outside world. Walking into the studio each afternoon, I felt a sense of belonging and ease, like I was meant to be there. My mind quickly drew blank from all my cares, and I was able to truly be present in the moment.

I made some of my best friends in dance class. I loved my teachers. This, however, all changed for me when I began competing. You could say that the show ‘Dance Moms’ is not all that far off from the harsh reality of competitive dance. Dance is where this all started. It is an unspoken truth that one of the essential things a dancer can receive is validation. Dance is challenging – long, tireless hours in the studio that pay off in the form of national titles and praise from our teachers.

        With competing, I noticed that dance was no longer about expression in different ways. To my dance teachers, competing meant they needed to keep their so-called “worst dancers'' far away from their eloquent and flexible dancers. You can probably assume which group I was in. I found it embarrassing when my name would not get called for special parts, and it made me feel as though I was not worthy of being in the dance at all. It would be hard to hide my flushed cheeks, and typically I would make an excuse to exit the room shortly thereafter. I would leave the studio every night with my head held high because my nights never ended there. Even after feeling rejected by the ones who I was supposed to learn from, I would then have to carpool home with my two best friends– both of whom would undoubtedly get picked by our teachers every time. Looking back, I hated those car rides. Even though we took the same classes at the same level, I always felt a disconnect between them and me. And I feel like they felt it deep down, too. My earliest positive memories of ballet class when I was young quickly turned into anxiety-filled memories. I can remember the butterflies in my stomach every time we would dance ‘across the floor’ one by one once we left the barre. I hated crossing the floor. I constantly compared myself to the girls that took their turn before me and nitpicked each and everything about myself. It took me eleven years to realize that the environment I was practically living in was unhealthy. And to be honest, if it wasn’t for me speaking up for myself, I cannot say how this would have ended. It is so crazy how vivid those memories are for me, and unfortunately, I can recount every detail because they have shaped me into the person I am today.

        Sadly, the thing that was once my one and only personality trait has brought out so many negatives. When I think of dance, my brain no longer replays my earliest and fondest memories of the ballet barre. I can feel every inch of my body tense as I think about the internal struggles dance exposed. I would hate to sound ungrateful for the eleven years I spent dancing. After all, this sport is a huge commitment that involves time and a lot of money. I knew it was time to call it quits when I stopped caring about those two things. My parents would take time out of their lives to watch me perform, and I could not even give them the courtesy of being appreciative because I was so miserable.

As I said earlier, anxiety is something that I have learned to live with. When I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I felt defeated. I did not understand why my brain had to be the chemically imbalanced one. Can’t it be anyone else? I thought this diagnosis was detrimental to my life in some way or another. I know it is not. Anxiety does not have to be a bad thing. From how I look at it, all anxiety does is shed just a little more light on the things that cause our problems, making us more aware and able to fix them. Writing this today, I can confidently say that this diagnosis did nothing other than change me for the better. It has been a while since I last got up on a stage and danced. Five years, to be precise. Once I realized that I didn’t have to keep showing up to the place that made me feel most out of place and unwanted, I found other hobbies that gave me the same joy dancing used to. I was a cheerleader in high school; it was much less demanding. I remember caring so much about how horrible our uniforms were – brown and white spandex with our school plastered across the front in a nice mustard yellow. Looking back I am grateful that the color of my uniform was my biggest problem. What I loved about my cheer team was how inclusive it was. I was not worried about being the best because I didn’t have to be. Yes, I didn’t know how to do a backflip, but that did not stop me from getting a spot in the front of the pyramid for jumps. I no longer feared the rejection of my own mentors and peers, rather I was eager to get into the gym every day and start practicing.

 I am so proud of how far I have come. Yes, I still get anxious. I actually might even get more anxious than I used to – but under different circumstances.