Am I the only one who feels like they’re watching their own life happen from the ceiling? I’m sitting in the North Suburban Surgical Center right now. It’s 5:45 AM. The floor is that speckled grey tile that looks like it’s hiding dirt, and the fluorescent lights are making everything look slightly green. My mom is three seats over, scrolling on her phone, probably checking the neighborhood Facebook group or something (she does that when she's nervous). I’m scheduled for a bilateral hip arthroscopy with some extra stuff I can’t quite name. Basically, they’re shaving down the bone and pinning everything back together. It’s a permanent fix. The surgeon explained the trade-off in his office last week. To walk without a limp at thirty, I have to stop the rotation now. My range of motion will be capped at about 60 percent of what it used to be. For a normal person in a suburb like this, 60 percent is fine. You can walk to your car, you can go to the mall, you can sit at a desk. For me, it’s a career-ending deficiency. I’ve been dancing since I was four. That’s eighteen years of daily repetitions. My joints are literally worn down to nothing. I’m twenty-one and my bones look like they belong to a sixty-year-old. I remember the exact moment it clicked during a rehearsal last October. We were doing a series of grand jetés across the floor. On the third one, there was a sound—not a loud sound, just a dry POP inside the socket. It felt like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. I finished the set. I walked to my car (a white CRV my parents got me for graduation) and I sat there for twenty minutes. I didn't cry. I just looked at my hands on the steering wheel and waited for the throbbing to reach a manageable level. I didn’t tell my coach for three weeks. Does anyone else find comfort in the technical side of it? I’ve spent the last month reading the MRI reports over and over. The words are so clean. 'Chondral loss.' 'Subchondral cyst formation.' It sounds like a weather report or a maintenance manual for a machine. It’s much easier to think about my body as a machine that’s out of warranty than to think about what I’m actually losing. My instructors keep texting me about 'staying positive' but they don't know the specifics. They think this is a temporary setback. It’s not. My anatomy is being physically reconstructed to be AVERAGE. My mom told the neighbors I’m having a 'minor procedure' to fix an old sports injury. She’s very big on keeping everything sounding casual. In our neighborhood, you don't have LIFE-ALTERING CATASTROPHES, you have 'complications' that you 'handle.' We spent $400 on new Lululemon sets for me to wear during recovery because people might drop off casseroles and I need to look put-together. I’m sitting here in one of them now. The tags are still itching my side. Everything is so curated (it’s honestly exhausting). I had my last real session in the studio three days ago. I didn't tell anyone it was the last one. I just stayed late after the high school class finished. I did a slow barre, just feeling the friction in the joint. It hurt, obviously, but it was familiar. I watched myself in the mirror and tried to memorize the silhouette of a perfect extension. Once the surgeon starts the procedure, that shape will be physically impossible for me to make ever again. My body will literally be incapable of the geometry required for the only thing I'm good at. The nurse just called my name. Or, well, she called 'Alexandria,' which I hate. I have to go put on that paper gown and the non-slip socks. It’s weird how the air in here smells like bleach and old coffee. I can feel the weight of the last four years—the auditions, the city commutes, the ice packs—just sort of sliding off my shoulders. It's almost like I’m relieved? Is that bad? To be relieved that the choice is being taken away from me? I don't have to wonder if I'm talented enough anymore because I'm literally being disqualified by a scalpel. I’m typing this as I walk toward the double doors. My hip catches on every third step. It’s a sharp, mechanical pinch. In two hours, that pinch will be gone, and so will the version of me that lives on stage. I don't know who is going to be in the recovery room. Probably just a girl who lives in a suburb and needs to find a new major. Anyone else ever feel like they’re mourning a person who isn't even dead yet? I’m ready to be done. I’m just REALLY ready to be done with the pretending. (I hope the anesthesia kicks in fast).