This is for everyone who thinks things are stressful, or too much, or even impossible. If someone can do all of this, I’m sure you can too.
Freshman year. A new school, a new start, even though she wasn’t exactly sure if she was ready or not, she was about to find out. She was a smart girl, she had a great boyfriend, and she was a dancer, getting better every day. She didn’t think anything could go wrong. Until it did. Things were good at first, she was told she could go on pointe, which was her biggest dream, being a dancer. Then, she was in her dance class and was doing a turn that she had been doing for years, only it didn’t end like it normally did. Mid turn, she hurt her knee and fell to the floor with a loud thud. Everyone in her class looked at her worriedly, she said she was fine, although she couldn’t really walk. The next day she went to the emergency room- it turned out that she had dislocated her knee, during which she chipped off two pieces of the bone on the side of her knee. Oh, also she had completely torn a ligament. She was told she would need surgery. The people she loved, including her boyfriend, were worried, but she just wanted to get back to dancing.
The operation went well, the first thing she said when she awoke from the anesthetic was, “when can I dance again?” No one in the room had the heart to tell her. The next day she was told that after 10 years of dancing, she had worn out her cartilage. There was a huge hole in her knee where it should have been, they would have to do another operation to fix it. This one went well too, but now she would need months of physical therapy to return to dancing. Worse, she now had 4 noticeable scars on her knee which she was ashamed of. Her boyfriend helped her to not hate them, embrace them even. She couldn’t walk for 4 months, she was trapped in a wheelchair and she despised it. Things were already bad.
Then, bad became worse. Her boyfriend who she had depended on, broke her heart. Worse yet, her best friend became his best friend. The next few months were some of the hardest she had ever endured. She was sad, depressed even. Her friends didn’t get just how hard it was for her to cope with it all… she couldn’t cope.
The one thing she wanted to do most, dance, was the one thing she couldn’t do. Three months later, she was still no better, she needed something, anything to make her feel better. She found it. It was music. Her now favorite band. When she listened to them, she didn’t feel the pain that she had been carrying for the past several months. Things started getting better. She could walk again and, slowly but surely, she was getting further along in her physical therapy sessions. Nine months after she got hurt, she was finally cleared to go back to dancing. It was the best news she’d heard in a long time, she couldn’t stop smiling when the doctor told her. It was frustrating at first, seeing some of the things she could no longer do as well as she used to be able to, but there was no better feeling then being able to dance after so long. She auditioned for the dance team and she made it, which validated her in her dancing abilities. She finally felt like things really were okay again.
She just had her first on stage performance since getting hurt. It was the best feeling, knowing that she could still hold her own and perform in front of people. It was one of her best performances ever and it made her feel absolutely untouchable. She loves her scars, and shows them off whenever the opportunity presents itself. She has worked hard and improved her dancing skills and achieved her dream of getting on pointe. Despite the challenges she faced, she overcame and is now a stronger person because of them, and she is still an optimist. Now you may think some of this might sound a bit exaggerated. But, I can assure you, that it is all 100% true. I know because, I lived through it.
