I can still remember sitting at our family computer on a December night in 2006, writing the letter to the director of my dance studio of almost six years, tears streaming down my face as I explained that I was not coming back in January. Not because I was going someplace else or because I had decided that dance was not for me. But because my body could no longer handle me doing the thing I loved most. Because, as a 14 year old girl, dancing for even a half hour did so much damage to my knees that even walking became a pain-filled activity.
Giving up dance was one of the hardest things I have ever done, in part because of how I came to do it in the first place.
Growing up in a family of soccer players, I always assumed (as did everyone else) that I would be just like them. But I wasn't. I didn't have the drive or the competitiveness to do it. What I did have was a love of being on stage and performing. During fourth grade, I tried to do both. I played on a soccer team and I took a dance class. And I discovered that I liked one infinitely better than the other. So that was the last year I played on a soccer team.
It was hard for me at first. Not because I didn't enjoy dance or because I missed soccer. It was hard because I felt like I was missing out on something great with my siblings. None of them could really understand why I made the choice I did and they reacted with varying degrees of support. But all of that went away while I was actually dancing. It became my release. I threw myself fully into learning and becoming the best I could be. I guess I figured that if I was going to be different than everyone else, I was going to do it well. I didn't want to ever look back and wonder if I had made the right choice. I think deep down, I also hoped that if I was good enough, everyone would understand why I had picked dance over soccer and then, maybe, I wouldn't feel like an outsider or that others disapproved of my decision. I worked hard, and in the process, I truly fell in love with it.
I loved working on the same things over and over again until I got them down. I loved feeling my body move to the music, becoming so engrossed in itself that nothing else mattered. I loved that it didn't matter how many times I messed up in class, I always had a chance to improve on it. I loved stepping on to the stage when the performance day came and doing the routines I knew so well it was almost like breathing.
Ironically, the decline in my knees started in fourth grade, too. Obviously that was a big year for me. When it started, it wasn't the pain that signaled its beginning, it was the sound. The cracking sound of my bones grinding together. It was only after many years, doctors' visits, and physical therapy sessions that I finally decided it was too much. I gave up on trying to make it better and trying to figure out what was wrong. I even refused to see a doctor about it for about three years (one doctor telling me a lot of it was just in my head was enough for me).
After that final performance in December, the only dancing I did was for musicals. That was how I got my dancing fix. But even then, it was still painful. I had just decided that it was worth it.
My mom had to have a surgery on her knee last spring. Something the doctor said when explaining how the surgery had gone prompted her to call and ask me if she could set an appointment to see her orthopedic surgeon. I finally gave in and said yes. After taking my last two finals of the semester, and running on three hours of sleep, I made the trek to Bountiful from Provo and met my mom at the doctor's office. After explaining what had gone on, the extremely nice PA said that while he didn't know what was wrong, he thought that nine years of pain was more than long enough to justify having surgery just to find out.
So I changed my summer plans, made the appointment and a week later had the surgery on my right knee. And then in August I had the same thing done to my left knee. Since my kneecaps were on the farthest edge of where they were supposed to be, the surgeon did what is called a lateral release on me, meaning that they took one of the muscles controlling where my kneecap goes, detached it from the bone, slid my kneecap back over to where it is supposed to go, and then reattached the muscle. The worst part was building back up the muscle in my leg that was completely destroyed in the process.
While I had to go to hours of physical therapy and I still have days when the pain hits, it was all worth it because, you see, I can dance again. I am dancing again. I was terrified to start and I still don't have the range of motion in my knees that normal people have, I don't care.
I get to feel the music as it passes through me and causes my body to move without any conscious thought on my part. I get to explore my world again as I find new ways to move through it. I get to find myself again by allowing movement to become my expression.
I get to love again, in a way that, after that sorrowful December night, I never thought I would again.
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