Genius Dancer Monologue

She was light on her feet. She was flight. Her feet tapped intensely, irresistibly drawn to the dance floor. A genius dancer, a regular Nureyev. Blonde hair, sharp nose, hips small, legs tight, and seated on the floor beside the other girls, watching her with baited breath, I curled my toes at her every movement pretending it was I who were doing them. She had been a guest of our instructor, a flower in the world of ballet, she called her. I had never seen moves like hers. I had been surrounded by girls, of all shapes and sizes, of all color, and never had it occurred to me that we were different. The moment in your youth, if you recall it, when your insecurity slices through your innocence and challenges you to see yourself differently than you have ever before then you know, you know that something is lost then, like your mother's favorite piece of china that cracks, still china, but still

I know what my dad would say if he could read this right now, he'd tell me that he knew it would happen that way because Nessa, you see things the way in a different way. And I wouldn't argue him. Because for every moment of misplaced inadequacy, there were ten more of me knowing it was wrong, of my heart wrestling around on the inside, beating against the walls of my chest, shouting this isn't my body, this isn't my body, you aren't my person. So what if my instinct is to see the beauty in an ugly situation, so what if I'm short, so what if my body doesn't resemble hers, so what if my voice is this, or my laugh is that, and so what, so what, so what, thank GOD for that because this is who God made me to be, and I learned that I'd rather be the worst version of myself than the best impersonation of somebody