My impossible dream

Abstract

Lined up with my new classmates at the barre we stand in silence in first position, waiting for the music to begin. I catch a quick glance of myself in the mirror. “Look at you!” I think to myself harshly, “you still don’t belong here even after all those years trying to fit into the ballet world.” To my right stands 13-year-old Katie, shorter than me and thin as a stick. To my left is 12-year-old Stephanie with a normal body for her age and still not developed. As I look around the room it is the same: 14, 15 and 16-year-olds, all thin, all perfect ballet bodies and then me. Twenty-eight years old, slightly overweight and still trying to fit in where I don’t belong. The music starts and I temporarily forget the mirror, concentrating on the exercise. I bend into a plie but I can’t forget my body totally. I feel my knees ache as they strain under the weight of my body and the tips of my fingers tingle as I stretch out my arm. It is a good kind of ache as I put my body through the barre exercises, the kind that makes me feel good about exercising. “Come on girls, you are dancers so please look like dancers,” the teacher instructs as we move into second position as a synchronised group. ‘Look like dancers.’ The phrase repeats in my head as I again gaze into the mirror and see myself as anything but. I have always thought of myself as different. Different in the sense that while growing up I never, in my mind, seemed to fit into what society deemed ‘normal’. For me this society was Southern California, home to movie stars and the latest fashion trends; the so-called ‘beautiful people’. In the 1980s and 1990s, this society demanded a certain look that was anything but normal, and growing up in this shadow of influence, if you did not fit in – you knew it. It is still much the same today. Anywhere you go, advertisements and media coverage about beauty, diet and how to live bombard you. People who stand out are often targeted and made fun of for being and looking different from the ideal. During my early years and even before I was born, my grandmother had small parts in movies, acted in the regional theatre and did some modelling. My aunt too was a fashion model and did some commercial work in television. They both were heavily influenced by the Hollywood image of thin, beautiful bodies. I remember how both my grandmother and my aunt looked during their moment in the spotlight – thin. My aunt was always so thin you could see her bones. This fascinated me for some strange reason. Yet the terms anorexia or bulimia were never discussed. She was never thought of as too thin, from what I heard. Beauty and thinness were held over my head like a prize, a symbol of success in a hard town like Los Angeles. The message I got was, ‘achieve success in the movies, television or media and your troubles will be taken care of’. The only problem was that in order to do that you had to fit their image. As a child, I thought everyone in my family looked ‘normal sized’ except me. From the moment I could understand words, I was judged as being too pudgy or chubby. My family would comment that I had the body structure of my father who