The Girl in the Mirror

I have always loved to dance. There is a line in the musical A Chorus Line that explains my feelings about it: "All I ever wanted was the music and the mirror, and the chance to dance." When I was drinking, dancing provided me with a means of escape--a chance to forget who I was, what was happening to me, and the nightmare going on inside of my mind. Once the "buzz" kicked in--you know that feeling that comes when liquor first rushes to your head--I would make my way to the dance floor, believing that all was well. The music would begin (the louder the better), and I would be into the short-lived fantasy. My body would begin to move in a frenzy (the wilder the better), and I would believe I was someone else, living someone else's life, possessing someone else's mind and body. My new, brief identity would be that of a famous Broadway actress, a Bob Fosse dancer, or a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Multicolored lights would begin to flash from above, the brighter the better. When the transformation in my mind was complete, I would no longer be the girl who was flunking out of school, who was out of work, who threw up and blacked out, who hadn't called her family for over a month.