decided to take an extra dance lesson Tuesday because I didn't have time for much dancing last week with all of the prep for Pride weekend and by the end of the lesson I was in tears and I found myself unable to stop crying. The tears started when my teacher pointed out that as I was dancing, I was either constantly hunched over or my arms were hanging at an awkward position by my side. She said that this was an indication that I was feeling a sense of shame and discomfort about my breasts and pelvic region and that I was to dance the piece until I could let go of my sense of shame and let my inner beauty come through. I wanted to quit because the idea of letting go of the pain I had been holding in all weekend just hurt too much.

It all started Saturday afternoon and just went downhill from there. Saturday afternoon, I was backed into a corner about a situation that I wasn't emotionally equipped to handle at the time. It was done with such anger and accusation that I was left feeling hurt, drained, and like the scared 7 year old me who thought I was too ugly to make friends and only felt comfortable talking to my stuffed animals and books. I felt tired and sad. I just wanted to feel Beautiful.

That evening Beloved and I decided to attend our first ever sensuality party that we had been invited to and I was really looking forward to just kicking back and letting my hair down. I even did a little impromptu dance in the corner for Beloved to her favorite song because I love it when she tells me that I'm Beautiful. The look in her eyes as I danced told me that something was off....was it the room? Was it me? Why wasn't I Beautiful? The rest of my evening was spent feeling awkward as every attempt at conversation was met with a questioning glance as they wondered if the fat black chick was trying to pick them up. On the t.v. there was a hot lesbian porn playing filled with frolicking and happy skinny white chicks getting their brains fucked out because in the dyke world being skinny and white means that you're fuckable and Beautiful. I just wanted someone to talk to me and tell me I was Beautiful.

I carried these feelings with me as we began dance class Tuesday. I carried all of the hurt, lonliness, and insecurity into my dancing and it showed in my less than enthusiastic performance in front of my teacher. She told me to dance again. So I took a deep breath, stepped out over the edge and let go. As I finished, I couldn't stop crying because for the first time in a while, I looked inward and found myself to be Beautiful.