The girl in the mirror loves to dance. She has been dancing ballet since preschool, when she was a little, bubbly, five-year-old in a pink leotard, skirt, and fuzzy leg warmers. In middle school she starts to feel self-conscious about her body.

This girl doesn’t like the mirror in her dance studio. She purposefully looks for the blind spot so she won’t have to look at her body encased in constricting tights and a green leotard. She’s tall, so the wrap skirt with little red flowers is not quite long enough for her legs. She’s always pulling it down. She hates how her head looks in a slicked-back bun, and how it makes her forehead look too big. The other girls giggle about how they love the mirror. But she picks the same center spot every class and concedes to looking at the brown wooden door during adagio.

It gets worse. She hates the size of her legs; she’s not as slender as the other girls. No one had ever told her bad things about her body, but those little voices inside her head just loved to whisper. Why don’t you look as good as Olivia in your leotard? You aren’t even half as talented as she is. 

She cries after class sometimes. Her teachers tell her to focus on the mirror and less on the floor, but she can’t help herself. Her mood gets worse and worse. She’s irritable and frustrated all of the time. Her parents become concerned. 

She brushes off their conflicted gazes and escapes to her room to do her homework.

She wishes she could look stunning like all the girls on the TV. Sometimes she wishes that she had a fairy godmother who would make her body perfect. However, no fairy godmother was going to fly in and solve her problems.

All is not lost for this little girl, because a miracle does come. Her older sister comes into her room, sits on her bed, and starts talking. Words like a rushing waterfall, breaking through the girl’s dammed-up heart. “I know you don’t feel it now, but trust me, you are pretty. The world is foolish because it doesn’t realize that everyone is beautiful.”

“But how am I pretty if my legs are so big?” she mutters.

“If right now you can’t say that you love your body, just say how thankful you are that it supports you. That is the most important thing. Your legs are strong enough to help you dance. That’s all that matters.”

It is hard to take her sister’s advice. She is cynical, she is tired, and she doesn’t know who to believe. But, her sister has been through all of this before. 

So she starts pushing back on what society thinks of her and instead focuses on feeling happy. Her classes in contemporary help her feel better about herself by wearing comfy pants and t-shirts. She feels more comfortable in her own skin.

There are days when she wakes up feeling awful, and in a terrible mood, and there are days when she feels great. No matter how her day turns out, she strives to keep thinking positively about her body.

High school begins, and the girl makes it her goal to reinvent herself. Not like before, no, she wants to reinvent herself into something new, someone she can admire. She gets a haircut that makes her feel gorgeous. Her mom buys her new clothes that make the girl overjoyed and confident. She pledges to try to put together a nice outfit even when she is tired and sad. On those days, a good outfit improves her mood and gives her determination. She makes a lot of new friends, some from her new dance classes and others from her academics. Her smile brightens and is pierced with laughter because her friends are funny, cool, and so very kind.

Sure, she cried a lot in the first few weeks. But only once from dance. That’s a start.

She starts wearing leggings and tighter shirts to dance. Not because she is forced to, but because she begins to feel good in them. She is no longer afraid because she enjoys the comfort they bring to dance.

The months pass and she gets her own makeup for the first time. When she was younger, she had to use her mom’s supplies for dance performances, but now her mom is taking her to Sephora and she is reaching for her own black and white striped bag. Bag in one hand, her mother’s hand in the other, her thoughts buzz happily.

Now, it is her winter dance performance, and she is laughing with her friends while they all get ready for the curtain call. She is putting on her makeup, and while there is a bit of a learning curve – she still can’t put eyeliner above her eye – it doesn’t matter. She loves the color of her lipstick and the gold eyeshadow that makes her eyes shimmer like the sun.

Beauty is mine, not the world’s. I get to decide my opinion on it.

So, I step away from the mirror and smile to myself. The girl smiles too, her face a perfect replica of mine.