Dancing Free
When Elina was a kid she loved to dance. She always wanted to be moving about and active like people she saw around her. Dancing was so fun. But she got tired quicker than most kids, she could remember demanding one of her parents pick her up after playing because she'd gotten ticketed out and felt sore.
Growing up that only got worse. She started feeling worse and worse, her limbs aching, her exhaustion being constant, and worst of all the throbbing headaches that followed after the striking pain in her back.
It started with too much movement on her body, then gradually became every time she woke up and when to be to persisting throughout the day.
Her energy became far too low to keep up dancing when she felt like it. She stopped feeling the joy that she used to express through dance, the bubbly sensation that dancing gave her causing her to genuinely smile.
It didn't seem like anyone noticed. How she feel into sorrow as her mobility lessened, how the pain made her want to rest and eventually even stopped eating. She hated it, she was alone and isolated and she couldn't feel anything other than numb or the debilitating pain in her body and she hated it.
Music was her escape. She found songs that she related to, song that reminded her of the feeling of free movement, songs that helped her feel at all. Music was almost all she had to pull her through the storm life had tossed her into.
Elina felt like life had punished her simply just for existing ever since she was a kid. The world around her blamed her for how her body was failing her.
"You're so lazy, just get up and move" "it can't be that bad" "you're fine, it's all in your head" "guess that's your fault for not exercising." "You can do it stop making up excuses" "have you even tried?" "Have you tried just doing it"
Berating, nagging, useless suggestions, blaming...so many repeated and rephrased words nailing home the idea that it was her fault, that she was never going to amount to anything more, that she was a burden, not trying hard enough.
She'd push herself far past her limits, her body screaming warning after warning until she would collapse and break down almost every night, sometimes even in the morning.
It hurt. Her body, no one there to tell her it was okay, even her own parents having times of not believing her and telling her to keep pushing herself. It all hurt. She hated it so much, nothing felt worth it, not even relationships. Why would it be worth the effort if they were just going to tell her the same thing she'd always heard?
Maybe they were right. Could they be? She'd always tried so hard, and when she finally gave herself breaks she'd fall behind. Maybe she was the problem, or maybe she just was meant for this world.
Dancing was the farthest thing from her mind for a long time...until it wasn't.
With the right song, the right motivation, she'd push herself back onto her feet. Even if it was just for her, her alone in her room with a single song playing again and again, she took a step.
One step led to another, and very quickly she found her rhythm again, dancing in time with the song. Dancing away the stress and the worries and the voices. Each step more liberating than the last, she found the feeling she'd been missing.
She didn't care if her legs were going to give out on her after the song, she didn't care if people were going to scoff at her for being tired again, she didn't care. Not right now.
Right now, Elina was dancing. Dancing joyfully, dancing energetically, a dancing queen all in her own right, dancing free.
