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When I was in third grade, my mother decided that I should join ballet as a way to keep me distracted from what was happening with the divorce of my parents. I’m not sure what exactly made her think I would be interested in such a thing, back then I hated looking feminine in any way - and I mean it in a I-would-cry-and-throw-a-tantrum kind of way. But she did, and she dragged me along to every store that sold uniforms and ballet shoes and hair accessories and such, very much to my dismay.
It was odd though, I frowned and whined throughout the entire process...until I was pushed into the classroom for beginner ballerinas. I don’t know what it was that stunned me into silence, maybe it was the fact that the teacher was so magnificently beautiful and I was too gay to deal with it; perhaps it was the amount of girls thrown in one room, all giggling and chatting away like a group of best friends even though the majority had only just met. All I know is that I loved the athmosphere around me.
The ballet instructor, Miss Vazquez, was the sweetest woman I had every met, bless her soul. I was socially anxious, clumsy, and all-around awkward, but she didn’t let it stop her from patiently teaching me how to dance. I mean, to this day I have two left feet, but back then I had absolutely no body coordination. Still, each time I came remotely close to doing something right she would cheer and celebrate it like I was showing enough promise to become the next ballet legend. She taught me how to dance to the vibration of the music, since I’m deaf, and would always figure out new ways for me to improve. It came to the point where I convinced myself that I was in love with her, and that one day I would end up marrying her, when I was old enough.
I became obsessed with ballet. I practiced any time I could; if you’d met me back then, you would have seen me scrambling to finish my classwork or test before anyone else and begging my teachers at school to let me practice in the halls while the rest of the class finished. It was unhealthy, but I wanted to impress Miss Vazquez. She had so much faith in me, she was always reassuring me that I could be as good as any other ballerina if I dedicated myself to it. Miss Vazquez always noticed the improvements, would always praise my efforts. It was like a drug that left me dazed for the rest of the weekend.
Alas, it couldn’t last. The divorce of my parents were costing my mother a fortune, and she couldn’t afford to continue taking me to the ballet lessons. Not to mention that she needed to find someone to take care of my younger brother, who was a toddler at the time, and my grandmother was too sick to do it like she used to. So I stopped showing up.
I never got to say goodbye, and I never saw Miss Vazquez again. We never recovered financially, so I was never able to continue dancing. It was the first time I experienced heartbreak, but looking back, it was a beautiful kind of ache.