It was a Friday, and I had a sore throat that day...I felt like hell. But it was the first day of class, and I couldn't exactly call the instructor and tell her that I didn't feel good. I wanted to be in that class, and I had to prove it to her. I was going to dance anyway, and I was going to dance as hard as I could.

I don't remember many of the sequences that we did that day. After plie`'s, my mind kind of goes blank. But what I do remember is how sore I was that weekend...how I had to use my arms to actually lift my legs to get up after sitting down. Not only was my body achy from being sick, but I hadn't moved my muscles that way in years. I worked out a lot, but you could be a triathlete and ballet would still make you sore. That weekend was miserable, and I felt weak inside when I realized that come Monday, I would have to be back in that studio.

She said that I could stay...me and probably ten or fifteen other girls. There was only a small portion of the class who had taken this class before. The rumor was that she made you take this section twice before you could move on to the next level. I wasn't so sure that I was going to make it out of this level, let alone move onto the next...there were a lot of things that I had never learned in ballet before, and it was painfully clear to me that I had no choice in the matter...I had to learn them now.

Ballet was different now. It wasn't like it was ten years ago. It wasn't relaxed and beautiful. It was hard, and the way I was performing was so ugly. I couldn't do things as easily as before. My body was not as flexible...I was more self conscious than I had ever felt in my life, and I was angry that this was so hard. The room was filled with 29 freshman girls, and I was the only one there for a reason entirely my own.

I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. And at some point, I wanted to be able to say that I enjoyed it. I didn't though, not for a long while. I was always so down on myself for getting things wrong, for being less than average at something that I used to brag about doing. And that was where I thought it would end. I would finish the semester, get through it as quickly as I could, and then I could say that I did it...that I tried it again and that it was great, but I was pretty sure that my schedule would not have room for it in the Spring...and I was not about to make the room for it.