ballet

so i have started taking ballet classes. i used to dance when i was young. and again when i was living in santa monica. i love the classical music. love the sound of the ballet shoes sashaying across the floor. it's relaxing to me. and on the top of the list of things i lost along with alot of blood and my sense of safety all those years ago. (also jogging, hiking, back country skiing, riding a bike, playing any sport that involves running and a lot of things that i used to love to do).

it is still hard for me to have to acknowledge that i have a bad leg and i will have a bad leg FOREVER. that i am not the person i used to know. that one night could take something from me as important, as huge, as basic as my ability to run and jump and to live on the third floor (as stairs are something my missing muscles and nerves do not seem willing or able to adapt to).

and so i try not to think about it. i try not to try. because when i do it feels like a rock falling on my chest and i feel so frustrated and sad i don't know what to do. and i miss the way my head used to feel after a jog. the wind on my face. i miss riding my bike down santa monica streets. the freedom in the fast-ness. the arrogant ways i would ride drinking my coffee, passing the cars on those crowded california streets. i felt better than them. and hiking. oh hiking. summers spent sleeping in a tent and taking on the next peak. that was my youth. that was my way. that was who i was.

so my rehab doctors said try yoga instead. try elliptical machines. recumbent bikes. try swimming. gentle things. walk. things made for broken people. (and all i hear is broken people like you). and i did. and i do. but sometimes it feels a little like giving up.

and i don't want to give up. so i am trying again. anyway. and who cares if i fuck up or my leg shakes or that i hate looking at my thighs in a leotard (a touch of body dysmorphia is what joe would say but i think i just hate the ways my legs have failed me).

and the shit is brutal. i'm not gonna lie. missing half my calf muscle on my left side makes balancing on that leg HARD. and each class i tell myself that i will just do half of each set to conserve my leg but i don't work that way. once i start i can't stop. i have to do them all. and it's not that relaxed stretching to classical music that it used to be. that whole body massage. it's more like that last mile in a marathon. every part of me having to push so hard to get that leg to just hold me up. but i am winning. the war.

i am making.
strides.

i am crossing things off that list.

tell me again what i can not do.

or eff you spaulding.

watch me go.