Waiting room

Perfection is a concept, not a reality. And, let’s assume that it could be a reality – it could, at best, last for only a single moment. Just one beautifully extended piece of time where nothing was set on fire, nothing was destroyed, that nothing was wrong. But, the truth is, no one really wants to face reality. Everyone wants their own perfect concept fastened into a reality. Everyone wants their life to be as exciting as an action movie, or as romantic as a Lifetime movie. The real truth is that no one wants the truth. Try telling your mom that you don’t want to diet, even if it’s for your career as a dancing superstar. Try telling your dance coach that your legs probably aren’t going to get any longer. Try telling yourself that you aren’t cut out what you’ve been built up for your whole life. Not everyone is going to be famous. Not everybody gets to have a fabulous life. Not everyone gets their ass kissed. Sometimes, just maybe, all of us have to be ass kissers as some point. The real truth is that everyone wants their life story to be surreal. Not for real. Curtains are going to be up in 10 minutes for my dance routine. With scouts from School of American Ballet, Julliard, and the New York School of Ballet I had one moment of perfection expected of me. Just 3 minutes to make you forget about genocides. Racial cleansing. War. For the past 48 hours I’ve been on a liquid diet to make sure I was as close to 100 pounds as possible. I’ve had exactly 247 calories within the past two days, just to make sure that I had no ounce of fat on me. To bend the truth as much as possible, they had to make sure I wasn’t fat. Let’s take a step backward, just so you now a little about me. Walking through the hallways of school, the pressure was on. For the past week, there were advertisements for my upcoming dance recital over the announcements. Everyone knew my name, and what it was associated with. This was probably the worst part. The school was relying on me for this dance routine to go perfectly, that I could somehow better the reputation of everyone with a single Battement tendu. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that no pirouette of mine could save us all. The real truth is that everyone wants their own prince charming. In some way. My pressure was mounting, and I swear I’m not a bad kid. But when you know that less than 12 hours away is your make it or break it moment, you start to get nervous. You start to realize the weight of the world on your shoulders. Walking down the hallways, I could see the stares out of my peripherals. I could hear the hushed whispers as I walked by. The real truth is that I was fucking scared, and nothing was getting better anytime soon. That was, until I was offered the Adderall. The real truth is that everything built up for you is one big fucking lie. Lunch, period 3. I was sitting at my table, just watching the conversations go one in front of me. My meal was two bottles of water, for extra hydration. Brittany and Michaela were both debating the caloric value of half a bag of Sun chips and a bottle of crystal light. I didn’t really give a shit. The real truth is that I fucking hated shallow people. I hated my life. I hated where I was going. I hated what I was destined to become. I never wanted this life of being under a microscope, a life full of satisfying everyone else’s desires. The real truth is that I want to be happy, I just wanted to be happy. The real truth is that life was becoming more and more violent by becoming more and more stale. The real truth is that I’m just so tired, worn out. I’m your own 16 year old teenage wasteland. I stood up, and gripped the chair so hard that my knuckles went white. Spots of color blew up in my vision, and I was shaking hard. I was stumbling from table to table, comparing the steps I was taking to the miles in the New York marathon. The shifting shapes of peoples faces to that of formless blobs was scaring me, I didn’t know what was happening. I felt someone grip my side harshly, and pull me over to where the bathrooms were. Repeat drills of instructors screaming, “ALLEGRO, AVANT” were humming in my ear. A collision of liner perceptions were going on, I knew I was being offered a full bottle of medicine. For the small, inexpensive price of 20 dollars I would be a dancing queen tonight. “BALLON HIGHER, YOU FAT, WORTHLESS FILLE!” Not to worry, there wouldn’t be adverse side effects – that never happened. “BRAS BAS, EMORY! BATTEMENT SUR LE COU-DE-PIED, PETIT FOLLOWED BY A BATTEMENT, GRANDE! WAIT UNTIL YOUR MOTHER HEARS OF YOUR AWKWARD LEGS TODAY, FILLE!” You know what, you can pay me back after the recital. Just remember, just take one. Hey, you don’t look too good. Emory? “Now Emory, how are you going to be famous when you can’t even effectively perform a Coupé jeté en tournant without making my gag reflex kick in?” I ran to the bathroom and splashed water on my face until both the voices stopped. And finally, no one was criticizing me. Finally, I looked in the mirror. Who I saw I didn’t know, I just saw a gaunt, green eyed girl who looked like a desperate, wild animal. My straight, coffee colored hair was barely brushed. My face looked flushed and dead at the same time. My makeup was gone now, and I felt slightly naked with just a touch of forlornness. This is what we call setting the stage. The real truth is that its only 5 minutes until curtains are up, and that one pill I took an hour ago isn’t doing a goddamn thing. So, in order to face reality, I think this whole bottle of pills should make me feel the best. All I need is a few pills to help me achieve stardom and perfection. Who cares if I die at 25, or if my liver gives out in a few weeks? So with a swig of diet coke, and a handful of pills, I prayed to whatever out there so I’d be happy. I prayed for perfection and redemption. And I prayed that my name would never be called out before this packed audience. I believe the term is waiting room Christian, where you somehow become the most religious person alive when you need a favor. “…and now onto the star of the show tonight, daughter of world famous French ballerina Angelique Iosif, and prodigy of Desiree Donatien, comes a ballerina innovative in both form and virtuoso. Despite both parents being world class dancers, the young dancer stands at a mere 5’4, and has procured a placement in the highly respected, premiere dancing studio of Ballet Chicago as a summer internship this upcoming season…” There was a lump forming in my throat and my vision was starting to blur again. There was a loud thumping noise in my ear. The things nerves will do to you. “Without further delay, MISS EMORY IOSIF!” The reality is that if curtain call is your make it or break it, then I would advise you to buy some insurance on your life’s future. The beginning of Divertimento in D, K. 136: III. Presto began at a hopeful, fast pace. I begin by a graceful arabesque, followed by one petite capriole to the left, then to the right, and then with a grande capriole center stage. Then, to excite the audience, I begin with a swift couru across the stage, then by following into an Entrechat six with an efface Épaulement, despite my teacher being a classical French dancer. As I begin my Fouetté rond de jambe en tournant I spot a Cheerio that is growing monster like legs at an alarming rate. The powerful instruments coming from the orchestra pit are starting to become canceled out by the torrent of harsh noise filling my ears. I Jeté en avant, grand towards the audience, and almost scream out in fear as the waves of people begin to bend with enormous, intimidating colors I cannot describe. And for the song’s finale, to show off my enormous skill, I go into an Pirouette à la seconde, grande as the walls of black nothingness begin to descend upon me. Then, the collision of the darkness hit me harder than I could have imagined. As I fell into the darkness, the pointe of my toe fell into a harsh, normal footing and my head felt as if it was being boiled alive. I couldn’t tell if I was tapping along to the rhythm of the music, or if my heart was beating so hard it had created its own musical interpretation. And before everything went black, a supernova of color streamed in my vision, and I knew that the creatures rushing towards me weren’t as they seemed. Because the real truth is that all reality is distorted, and no one wants to face the reality they have created.