Dancing is a pain, especially when your mother forces you into it to relive her childhood memories. I am sitting in a silent room, mirrored walls surrounding me, as I slip on my Pointe shoes to get ready for practice; my mother makes me practice an hour each day, in this makeshift dance studio built in our house.

I get up and take a deep breath, adjusting the black spandex on my shoulders. I turn on the radio, despite my mother wanting me to practice to real music, whatever her interpretation of that means. It’s the only freedom I had, seeming as I didn’t have much of a choice to practice ballet in the first place. My mom said I’d love it; it would be the best thing to ever happen in my life.

Now here I stand, after I’ve turned on the radio, staring at my reflection. The mirrored images on each side of the room stare at me like an audience. Their brown eyes hold anticipation and expectations. They’re expecting something beautiful from my dancing, yet something tragic. They’re expecting me to rise and fall; my eyes hold menace. They want me to fail. In a way, I want to fail, to show my parents that maybe dancing isn’t all I can and should do.

A song blares through my thoughts, guitars strumming and the chords echo in my ears.

For a moment, I don’t want to dance. I have this ‘rebellious’ urge to go against my mother’s wish for me to dance everyday.

But the song is daring me to move. It’s telling me to lift myself up off the floor, and I comply. The words wrap around my moving body like silk, and the melody becomes my heartbeat. I look at myself dancing in the mirror, losing myself in the music. And then I suddenly don’t want to fail anymore. I want to dance until I stop breathing. I want to dance for myself, not for my parents, not for my dance class, not for anyone.

For twelve years I’ve performed and never really enjoyed it. Until today, for once I am ecstatic to dance. Because it’s my private little show starring me, and I am my only audience. I am free.