Just smile and nod.

Heading to Connecticut tomorrow for a weekend getaway and can't help but remember all of the memories I have from that state! I attended the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts as a high schooler and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I lived with an absolutely amazing host family that I still am in touch with and made some really great friends as well.

My perspective on everything is constantly shifting, but tonight I was thinking about myself at the boarding school in Connecticut and my mind instantly shot to a specific day where a teacher called me into his office...

...he was kind of creepy, but I always smiled and acted politely as a young student should.

This must have been one of the first months of being in school there; September or October maybe (exactly 7 years ago from right now!) He was very talkative so I listened, but what I was about to hear would stick in my head and keep playing over and over and over. To this day, when I am in my weakest of places, I hear it in my head and try to suppress it because I am healthy and smart enough to know that I am a stronger person than some educators I have met in my past.

He started off by saying that he was thrilled to have me back at the school from the previous summer of 2005. He said how promising of a student I was and how he couldn't wait to see where my career would take me. Then, he told me that the Principal of the school had seen me in my placement class earlier that week and said, "Wow. That's disappointing. What happened to her legs?"

Now, mind you, I was a 16 at the time. I weighed approximately 110 pounds. They had last seen me when I was 14. Generally, most normal people are aware, they were not, that a human body changes in that age bracket. A lot of maturing goes on in that time frame and apparently it wasn't good maturing in her eyes. This is the ballet world. Shit like this happens all the time. There are physical requirements. It sucks, but that's reality. I don't have a ballet body, but I have a beautiful strong body and only finally at 23 am I aware of the advantages of that.

Here's my thing: It was one thing for a Principal to say this. It was another for a different teacher to repeat it. It was an entirely different situation to repeat. to. my. mortified. face.

What is absolutely unacceptable is that this was a school that costs an extraordinary amount of money and claims to have a nurturing environment and faculty (and does have a handful of great faculty members), but for this man to call himself a professional in the field and then to be so ignorant as to tell a young girl that someone above him said something is wrong with her legs, tells us that there is a much bigger problem that begins with whom we allow to teach ballet and impress young girls in the first place.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but problems with legs would be paralysis. Problems with legs would be amputation. Problems with legs would be broken bones. There was nothing wrong with me and I feel sad for the weak teenager I was who let him finish the rest of that conversation while still smiling and nodding and agreeing.