Ballroom Dancing

Sweaty hands, trembling from nervousness. Calling out across the room to appease friendship and not intimacy. Giggles, smiles, twirling. While this experience is normal for every private school girl who practices with a brother school for her social, I consider it nightmarish.  I always think of the bad side of my childhood because that is all I really can remember. 

As a scale tipper, I have grown up experiencing things no child should. I have had experiences with society that still traumatise me to this day. I have been bullied to the extent where I am surprised that I am still somewhat mentally strong. I used to come home with severely grazed knees each day from school because a particular group of boys thought it was funny to watch the overweight girl in their class fall over. I probably have encountered a large amount of bad situations but I have most likely blocked them out of my mind. I am thankful for not being able to remember the entirety of my childhood. 

I remember distinctively, though, my experiences with ballroom dancing with male partners. Of course, I was the only overweight girl in my cohort. Naturally I stood out. This was a time when fat shaming was not frowned upon as much as it is now. I practically had no hope finding a suitable temporary dance partner, and this was difficult to accept seeing as the entire purpose of this activity was to ensure that we find partners to the debutante ball. I never found a partner, so I never attended. The boys were lovely - to the other girls. Some boys held not my hands but rather one finger on each hand. Most did not dare touch me, like fat was infectious. Others laughed, swayed their arms and spoke to their friends until I switched to another boy. My confidence was shot right down. And at lunchtimes I had to put up with my peers talking about how handsome the boys were and what a lovely experience it all was. I never could agree about anything so I would sit alone and draw. 

I think that is why I do not share connection with childhood acquaintances. We had the same events that we attended but we did not share the same experiences within those events. Those events were all so difficult for me because of my burdening weight. I understand if nobody understands because you cannot empathise fully unless you experience the site of trauma yourself and I understand completely that people who are not overweight do not comprehend why people who are overweight have so many traumatic memories. But the fact is that we do, hence our inability to enjoy things that we are meant to enjoy. 

Ballroom dancing was meant to be an enjoyable event. I do not remember anything enjoyable from it though. Watching the class of girls and boys dance through their part of the ballroom dancing experience was uplifting in that the overweight girl was treated well, and degrading in that I never was treated well in my youth. 

Growing Up

The video above echoes the very epitome of my innermost thoughts and feelings about losing my childhood one day at a time. I feel as though my youth is the younger boy in this video, and I am Sadie, and I am crying over the fact that my youth is slipping away.

When I was younger, I had pictured my life rather differently than what it is today. There is nobody to blame except for sadistic movie directors and screenwriters who think that portraying happy endings and fantasy-esque lifestyles are healthy for children to live up to.

I wanted to escape with Peter Pan. I had thought that he had not visited me because we did not own a double storey house - how was he supposed to come to a single storey house and not be spotted? I also thought he did not visit because of my lack of siblings - I have a younger sister, but at the time I was seven and she was four, so her and I probably would not have been much fun for Peter and Tinkerbell to be with.

Adult life is quite difficult. If somebody had warned me that drifting off to sleep would become difficult, and getting out of bed early even more difficult, and that drinking coffee was the only way to manage coping with sleep deprivation due to all the tasks adults perform, then I would not have signed up for it - I do not think that anybody would have. Would not you rather fly off with a young boy dressed in green, to a land where everything is ever-lasting? To a land where nothing like telephone bills or gas or water bills exist?

I blame Walt Disney for filling my head with this nonsense. I call it nonsense only because I think Tinkerbell would need to haul along three tonnes of that magic dust to make me fly, because Cinderella would be working at Starbucks today and would not be able to find a fairy godmother because all of the old women that come to get coffee in the morning are suffering from menopausal symptoms and sleep deprivation, a terrible concoction that could result in Cinderella losing her job if she is not quick and concise enough.

Reality hits hard those with wild imaginations, hits hard the dreamers and the make-believers. It hits hard those who have Disney movie collections, and those who await the presence of that little boy dressed in green each night. It hits those who think that true love even exists, particularly those who have invested in what they thought was it only to be shown otherwise in a painstaking manner. What Disney movies forgot to include was emotions, heartache, and loneliness. Those three elements are far more realistic than a poor woman magically fitting into the glass slipper, than a woman with long hair locked up in a tower who lets that hair down and does not feel any pain as a muscly main climbs up to her via her long locks of hair. 

It is all of utter ridiculousness and I pity those who enjoy reading romantic books. Unless you are reading Fifty Shades of Grey, then you better strap yourself in for a nice big slap from my friend, Reality.