I'm Not Leaving // lrh

yale

content / trigger warning: mentions of disordered eating.

When I was a little kid, my mom took me to the pediatrician. The best one on the east coast. We would go all the way to New York just to see her.

But this wasn't a regular check up. Stepping on the scale, getting vaccines and stickers as a reward.

The week before, a couple weeks shy of my eigth birthday, I demanded to quit ballet right before our showing of Swan Lake. I refused to change into my lily pad tutu and started to scream at the costume lady and our instructer. I curled myself up into the corner of the warmly lit dressing room and hid behind the rack of clothes the way I did in department stores. They kept asking me what was wrong, asking why I was freaking out when I'd tried the tutu on before.

I didn't have words for it back then, I was seven. The only thing I could do was scream and cry, hard, red faced and angry, gripping onto my normal tutu with tiny balled fists as my nose filled with snot, and eventually, a little bit of blood.

They were both used to my 'tantrums', as they called them. But they've never seen one this intense. My instructor more so than the costume designer, I actually liked that one.

I just had body issues already, and that wasn't her fault, nor was it the sole reason for my breakdown.

I'd known my instructor since I was a toddler and almost couldn't stand her or the way she taught. To be fair, I never really liked ballet, either.

They - to nobody's surprise - couldn't get into contact with my dad. They've met him once or twice over the years. And yet they preferred him. It's why they tried to get to him first. So they had no other choice but to call my mom, who was again - to nobody's surprise - running late to the performance. They were confused when they realized she wasn't there already. 

My nanny had dropped me off and had to get to school. Maybe that's why I started the day so upset. Hallie took me everywhere, ballet rehearsals and fittings included. She sat with the moms and watched us practice. But today she was going to miss my performance, and even though she felt bad, and apologized a ton for it, it still made me inexplicably sad. She knew my parents would be there and I'd be in the care of trusted adults. And even if my folks never showed, they had Hallie's number.

My mom blew into the room and started yelling at my instructor and the costume designer. And then when she couldn't get any answers out of them, she yelled at me to stop crying.

I have a job to do. I made a commitment, blah, blah, blah.

My vision was so blurry and I was screaming so loud, maybe even louder than her. I hardly even remeber the moment, even now, it's fuzzy, and now faded at the edges with time.

I didn't know how to articulate I never made those commitments. I never wanted to be in ballet. One day, I just was. I just woke up one day and was in those mirrored rooms, ruining my feet from the age of three. I didn't know how to say I was embarassed to be in a leotard because the other girls, the swans, told me my belly looked swollen. I was shaped like a lower case B they said. My dance instructor always scolded Hallie during snack time because I liked the eat moon pies with her.

And most of all, every year I knew the big performance was coming. I'd done it enough times. And I always threw up before hand the little I'd have to eat on performance day. Because I didn't want to be seen or noticed. I didn't want to go out there. Simple.