There are moments in life. Moments where you need to stop, breathe, and enjoy the time you have in this world. Well, there was a girl once, who did just that. Her name was Emily, and she left behind a memory, a full year, that when she died was just a memory. She lived that year like nothing else mattered, and I want to share her story with you.

That year was different, and it changed my life. I was with my usual dance group, but their were more. More dancers. In my class, I danced with Jenna, Morgan, Beth, and many others.

In Jazz, I learned how do a triplet pirouette, a double stag leap. I knew the difference between dancing and doing the step you learn. That’s what I learned from my Jazz teacher.

In Tap, I knew many new things, like a traveling time step, a paradiddle, Cincinnati, but most of all, I knew that to dance, you need to be free.

In ballet, I figured out how to listen, how to be patient, but most of all, I learned that you need to be tough to do the things you love.

That’s not what changed my dancing career forever. It was Pointe. I got my first set of Pointe shoes on November 9, 2011. I sewed my ribbons and elastics on with my sister, and I broke them in through many hard days of going on full pointe and strengthening my arch.

That year, I was in my first dance on Pointe. I was with the older girls in my academy, and I knew the way they danced, I would dance. I trained and practiced every day in the week that I had dance on Pointe. I got blisters, and I got callouses. I earned those pains in my feet from dancing too hard.

At the end of the year, I danced in my dance recital. I felt the lights beaming down on my face, the feeling of height in the pointe shoes, and the wonder that I was dancing in Pointe, in a tutu.

I loved the feeling.


These memory belong to a girl named Emily. Wherever you are right now, know that this piece is for you.