Envy
Dancing with the starlings
My roommate was a professional dancer.
We were in a safe, secret, and sacred place for a week. To heal.
She was beautiful. Beautiful in society’s just-right ways. Deep voiced. Confident.
And somehow, we were in this room together.
We sat at a desk together and both learned to see newly. We’d been through the same thing.
Our fathers betrayed us both. Our mothers did too.
She grew up in the church (of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I was a convert at 12. She grew up in Utah. I grew up in Kansas.
Sitting next to her, I saw the lies I’d told myself fall away. Skinny, blonde, and best in the room: none of these would have saved me, even if I’d had them. Hating the popular girl couldn’t save me.
My roommate sat next to me and for one brief, bubble-bright moment we shared one heart.
My envy fell away.
At the end of the week, all dozen of us women celebrated. At the front of the room, a singer sang Katy Perry’s “Firework”.
Two of us leaped to the front of the room and danced. A woman who shares my name and love of laughter. I jumped up too. We share the same glorious, big, bold body type. Her skin was dark topaz beside my light peach. We didn’t have technique. We threw our arms in the air like wild women and laughed and giggled about it. I twirled and leaped and made eye contact with my roommate. My friend.
She sat in the audience and quietly shared with us the miracle of her tears.
That moment was holy:
The moment I danced as a happy fool in front of a professional dancer.