I walked into my dance studio with my Chewy granola bar in hand. “It’s measurement day,” the lady behind the front desk said. I looked down at the 100 calorie snack in my hand and tossed it into the trash can beside me. A few minutes later the team lined up in the office awaiting our turn to be measured. As the girls ahead of me went, I wondered what my numbers would be that time. The measuring tape slithered around my waist as I sucked in a little more with every movement. 25 inches. 

I was 12 when I started trying to knock down the numbers I felt so deeply defined me, when I would stop myself from breathing on stage because I was in a two-piece costume that showed my entire stomach.  Everytime I would walk into that dance studio I would look at the girls drowning me with their flat stomachs and perfect legs. 

Growing up, I always had a friend in dance. As we grew older I realized that no matter how much I loved her, a small part of me came to resent her. I remember being fitted for our trio costume and feeling how cruel and unfair it was that my thighs flooded out of the bottom piece when hers fit in so perfectly. Anytime she would leap, kick, or turn a small part of me became enraged by her. I came to resent myself more for letting it happen, allowing my mentality to envy my best friend. It was not her fault 12 year old me couldn’t come to terms with my body. 

When I was 14, I tried out for my high school’s dance team. I walked into the gym wearing my all black, skin tight clothes and was knocked down by the tall, thin, pretty girls around me. Some were my age, others were older and yet I looked nothing like them. My heart raced as I felt a phantom measuring tape slice around my body while watching them as they lept in the air and their legs would stretch thin. All I could hear was my old teacher yelling at me when I would leap across the floor, “Why do I hear an elephant? Be lighter Cadence.” I felt I had walked the plank of imperfection and slowly drowned in the sea of beauty. 

Now at 17 I stare in the mirror and I wish I could say I got over it all and I see a pretty girl staring back at me each and every time, but that would be a lie. Some days I see myself and I feel good, happy even. The next day I can look into the same mirror in the same clothes and feel disgusted.

The older I got, and the more people I talked to, I realized that it wasn’t just me. I was not the only person who looked in the mirror and wondered what I could do to look ‘better.’ I was not the only person in that studio who sucked in every time I saw that blue measuring tape. I am not the only girl, teenager, person who lies in bed at night wondering why I feel the way I do about my own body. 

The sad truth is, it’s normal. It is very common for one to be unhappy with their appearance, to stare in the mirror for hours yelling at every inch of their body to look better, spend hours in the gym exchanging each fat cell for muscle, or even push every piece of food away because it may add .01lb to the scale. Another truth is, some overcome it. People realize that their body is perfect being imperfect.

I have come to be comfortable when wearing a crop top or biker shorts. I stopped looking in the mirror and thinking about what everyone else felt about how I looked and started to think about what I felt about how I looked. I may not feel my body is pretty but I don’t hate myself for it, I no longer loathe people who look different from me. I look in my mirror and see me, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. The blue measuring tape may be held over my head, but it no longer suffocates me.