The Costs of a Dream
By: Hannah Young
Photo by Sadie Walsh

I made it to New York,
standing on the stage of my dreams
behind a curtain that will rise in exactly two minutes,
commencing the beginning of this performance at seven o’clock sharp.
I cannot believe this is it.
This is the moment I have been waiting for.
For as long as I could remember,
this was always the dream.
I never thought I would get here.
Will all the sacrifice be worth it?
I am standing on the stage of my dreams,
but at what cost?
All the parties I missed in high school,
the tests and quizzes I failed cause I could not study,
the people I snapped at and the ones that abandoned me,
the sporting games that I never got a chance to go to,
the inability to think about anything for a long period of time without dance getting involved.
The constant stress I put myself through physically and mentally,
the bones I broke, the muscles I pulled, and the blood I shed,
the body dysmorphia that I developed, picking myself apart piece by piece,
putting myself in a never ending cycle of extreme highs and lows,
the constant nauseousness I got from dancing too hard without proper nutrition.
All of these thoughts and more flooded me at once,
so much so that I did not realize that the curtain had rose.
The music was echoing from the orchestra a couple feet away,
and yet I did not move a muscle.
I was frozen in my starting pose
under the burning lights of the theater,
scanning the confused audience members
and turning my head to see my company also perplexed.
I relaxed from my starting pose,
putting my heels and toes together.
Slowly, I began to walk backwards.
Although I was physically in the theater, my mind was elsewhere.
I saw visions of what could have been my life
the utter joy I could have experienced,
the laughs I would have shared with my friends in high school,
the events I would’ve gone to, and much more.
The visions were so intense that I rose my head slightly towards the bright lights
and mouthed the words “thank you.”
Darkness overtook me as I fainted at 7:03 pm.