The Pointe Shoes Of Love And Adulthood

The pointe shoes. They come in the colors white, red, black, and pink. As I wear pink pointe shoes and dance in them, I feel so pure. Yet restricted to let go of the other possibilities of who I am underneath. Pink reminds me of purity and innocence. These pink pointe shoes exist to show that I was once free and, in my youth. The pure joyful person I once was vulnerable to anything and everything. As I use the practicing barre in the dance studio with pink shoes, it’s easier almost effortless.

When I practice on the open floor wearing the pink shoes, I slip, trying to nail the choreography. I pirouette again and again away from the barre. As I feel the overbearing pain in my left ankle, I continue to turn. I feel the pain everywhere in my arms, my chest, my neck. As I think endless pain is becoming, I can’t let go. Let go of the love I once felt. The level of openness towards someone I knew. As I pirouette in the studio, I see these black pointe shoes.

I dance around the studio. As I dance, I feel pure and untouched. At the same time, something is pulling me into this surrounding darkness. I dance away, attempting to be out of its reach. The studio no longer has doors and a barre. I’m trapped in a studio with my reflection and, inescapable darkness. I don’t feel light and airy like a snowflake. Instead, I feel as heavy as hail. The black shoes have taken my dance bag to a different part of the studio. I continue to dance, attempting to spin away from the black shoes. There’s a feeling of temptation, but it’s not worth giving up my youth and purity. It’s an endless cycle of dancing in these shoes away from the darkness. Nothing is as effortless as it started. Why is this dark cloud surrounding me? What does it want? The black pointe shoes are dancing with me.

It’s as if it wants me to admit or let go of something. Something I don’t want to let go of. Something that I’ve been repressing. As I refuse to give in, it continues to find me. I begin to dance out of the studio and follow the black shoes. Why am I following the Black pointe shoes and, where are they going? I don’t want to give up my innocence; it’s all I have left after a love I have chosen to forget. The person who shattered my self-confidence as if it was a mirror to him. The pain from the passion and energy. I can’t let go of this; the love I had meant so much to me. The heartwarming love I once felt is as empty as the studio I was dancing in. The black shoes are on stage how did I get from the studio to the stage? Why can’t I stop dancing with this endless pain that’s plaguing my every step and, arabesque?

I dance away from the stage, feeling more insecure and afraid. The dark cloud pushes me toward the stage and toward the shoes. I don’t feel free. I don’t feel pure or untouched. I feel ruined and scared. If I let go of this heartbreak and, the pain I can’t go back to what I once was. I can’t go back to the purity of the pink, the airy snowflake feeling I once felt. What is it about innocence I refuse to let go of? Purity? The spacious feeling of being as light as a snowflake? Feeling untouchable? Feeling the support of the dance barre?

My innocence was a safe haven for me. It was a feeling that I can still be who I am. Was it feeling restricted that I wanted to let go of? The price of innocence by not making my full self expressive. By restricting myself and the parts that barely even sparkle. I did love him, but he didn’t love me. While that love costs my time and, energy I couldn’t recognize who I was when it ended. I feel the pain in my toes, dancing fouttes on stage. The same pain I felt when he walked away and didn’t look back.

I thought I was his everything. I felt I mattered that we mattered. They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Instead of being everything to someone, I was nothing. The love, the feelings I felt are as worn out as these pink pointe shoes. Why can’t I let go? These Black pointe shoes are pulling me in as if I was being pulled by something greater something bigger. As if there was more to my life than youth and the joy of a snowflake.

Is there a side of me I struggle with expressing? Is it dark? Or is it as light as I once knew? What is it about those Black shoes that’s tempting? Is it the want to feel free? The feeling of not being repressed or restricted?

I stop. The curtain closes, and I see a mirror behind me — the same mirror from the studio with a mounted dance barre.

There’s something that I miss about support and purity. The black shoes have stopped dancing. The stage is as quiet as a lake on a warm summer day. I still feel the pain — the heartbreak. There’s not a dark cloud anymore. Was it a hallucination? I don’t know. As I touch the barre it goes from being wood to metal. I moved it again, and it was gone. There was no support of any kind. I sat down in the studio and stretched my legs. I still felt the pain. As I started feeling as if I was about to pass out, I felt loose different. The cloud wasn’t gone; it was still there near my innocent, pink worn out pointe shoes. When I look up after I stretch without the barre, they’re gone, nowhere in sight.

As I wonder about the studio with no dance barre, I can’t find my shoes. The shoes reminded me that somewhere out there was a love worth waiting for. I wander away from the mirror. Apart from my reflection, to look for my shoes.

As I was looking for my shoes from the studio to the stage, to the seats in the auditorium, I still couldn’t find them. There was a part of me that didn’t miss them yet a part of me that wanted to continue searching for them. I was lost and confused.

When I couldn’t find my pink pointe shoes, I admit to myself that the love I felt was childish, naive, and hopeful. I acknowledged that the passion, the time, the energy was all a waste of time. Sometimes I think it’s a reminder that I haven’t learned. I’ve always been told to let go because he’s not worth thinking about or talking about. I wasn’t embracing the fact that it was over or that I should’ve let it go a long time ago.

I was still in the studio alone near the black pointe shoes. When I looked I found that the pink shoes were where I left them. As I try to put them on I realize that they don’t fit. All of a sudden, they’re too tight. These shoes meant a lot me. They not only said my innocence and the idea of pure love with affection and warmth.

Sometimes I thought that finding a great love was as impossible as trying to fit into my pink shoe. There’s energy pushing the black pointe shoes closer to me.

Tempted, however, I don’t want to try them on. When I finally chose to I realized something felt different. When I went on my toes, I didn’t feel any pain in my ankles or my legs. I became unaware of my reflection. When I danced a pirouette, I felt free instead of airy. I still felt light, but it was different. There was no more prolonged darkness pulling me in. This meant that I had let go of what was I stopped obsessing over it — mourning about it. While still holding onto the fact that I can be someone else’s someone, something about dancing in these shoes felt impure. Felt as if I was committing a sin to a higher power.

There was a free feeling while dancing in black shoes. I wasn’t thinking about him, the pain, or the longing. I felt as if I had let go of all insecurities, all worries, and anything else that was holding me back from moving forward with my life. While I may have felt that I had embraced my side of myself, I had refused to embrace it for so long something about it felt nice. Felt relieving as if I had lifted a weight off my shoulders. I was free. I had let go and let myself go. In the right way, I lost myself no longer repressing what was repressed. As I danced away from the pink shoes and, back to the studio I felt different. Was it the idea of lost innocence or, the idea of moving on and feeling free? Since then, I have never had another pair of pink pointe shoes. I had refused to go back to a time of unrealistic hopes. The black pointe shoes were all that I danced in.