Inspired by the lovely K. Hendy

I made my decision. After visiting Bryn Mawr and deciding that it wasn't as good as Smith, I decided to go to Smith, and I am thrilled. Part of my excitement derives from the fact that I have wanted to go to Smith desperately, with all my heart, since I was about ten. (There was a period in there when I wanted to assert my independence from my sisters by going to Bryn Mawr, but fuck that noise. Smith is the most radical. In more than one sense of the word. What kind of women's college doesn't have openly gay girls? But I digress.) There's another part of me that's excited and happy because of what going to Smith means to everyone else.

I want to make it clear at the outset that I am not going to Smith to make anyone else happy. It's all me, baby. That said, both of my sisters went to Smith, and it's satisfying that we ended up there in different ways. Emily went Early Decision, Caroline was a transfer student, and I'm going Regular Decision, after a winding road involving obsession with BU, a brief infatuation with Bryn Mawr, and finally realizing the one I loved all along, Smith. It's like something out of Cynthia Heimel.

Anyway, now we have the trifecta. My whole family is delighted, and because I enjoy making people happy, that's nice. Since I made my decision on Monday, I've been considering what my Smith experience will be like. It'll be strange to not have ballet class every night, and because I was a Puritan in a past life, I dislike being idle, so I'll probably pick up some kind of new activity, but what?

Let's be frank. It's going to be something involving music, or theater, or musical theater. But to continue my story:

Today, Caroline called me to say that she thinks I should join crew because she's worried that I'll develop body image issues when I'm not dancing every day and start gaining weight.

It's an interesting idea, and not one I haven't considered. At the Bryn Mawr Open Campus Weekend, all of the rich girls wearing only Prada (and no, that's not an exaggeration) kept talking about the Freshman 15, and I realized: My metabolism is really fast because I dance like it's a part-time job, but in college, that will no longer be the case. Then what? My options are, as far as I can tell:

1. Pick up a dance minor so I can be in class regularly
2. Go to the gym a lot. (Downside: I will ruin this "dancer's body" I've been trying to develop for twelve years. This is actually not that accurate, because I'm the Betty Boop of ballerinas, so I will never have a dancer's body. But it still bugs me.)
3. Get a grip and not obsess about my goddamn weight.

I've never really had body image issues, in part because my ballet teacher is a genius and never, ever tells us we have the wrong bodies unless girls want to go pro and their bodies can't handle that level of stress (hyperextending knees, etc.). But another part of that is, I think, because I've always been pretty svelte. If I suddenly gained a bunch of weight, how would I react? I'm guessing not favorably.

This is a source of concern. A bigger concern is the recent discovery that K doesn't like her body, and that is a lot more important than my own self-involved ramblings. You can tell a girl over and over that she's beautiful, but you can't make her believe it. I was honestly surprised when I read this post. But what can I do?