i don't cut my hair

This is a monologue I had to write and perform for theatre at the very beginning of the school year. My recent post made me think of it.

I don't cut my hair because it is my only consistent source of compliments, and I need those. Validation from others is the only thing loud enough to drown out that voice in my head telling me that I am worthless by every definition of the word. That voice is so loud because for the years I spent in dance, I fed that voice instead of feeding myself. I gave dance everything I was, everything inside me, and now without it I can't find who I am. I gave them years of my life, and they told me I wasn't good enough. Now I don't know if my mask has ever adequately concealed how much I hate so much about myself, but the truth is it doesn't matter. Because they only person I've ever worn it for is me. Because I've found it's easier to lock myself out of my own emotions than to admit how pathetic it is that I can't straighten out my own life.

But now...I miss dance so much that it physically hurts to think about it. I miss the movement and how free it made me feel, how powerful it made me feel. I miss that incredible feeling of breathing alongside other marionettes on stage, all of us puppeteered by this passion for dancing that I can't explain. This absolute vibrancy in the blinding lights and hairspray. That we knewsomething those people watching didn't know. We had something, we had this force pulling us across the stage that they could never hope to understand. This fire in our souls that could make a furnace of the darkest stage.

And that was taken away from me when they told me I had to lose a lot of weight in order to succeed. They took that away from me with the words you don't look like a dancer. And I took that away from myself when I chose to believe them. When I chose to become the person they saw in all of my flaws. When I stopped pretending that I could ever be pretty or smart or talented because if I couldn't succeed at dance then I can't succeed at anything. It's a ridiculous mentality and I see that. It's pathetic and I'm well aware.

So now I wear shorts that show the legs Idespise and call it courage. I smile and the triumphs of others and call it success. But I'll catch myself feeling good about myself and feel guilty. I'll catch glances of my reflection and wonder what it is that other people see in me and if I will ever see it too.

But maybe it's not up to them to decide who I can and cannot be. Maybe it's high time I cut the hair I grow for other people and see if something better grows in it's place.