As a child, my dad bought me a porcelain, rotating ballerina music box. It was the one time he didn’t tie money or expectations to a gift. We never truly connected on a deeper level, and it was out of character for him to purchase something so inessential. As I got older, he would sometimes call our disconnect “our special dance,” a phrase that never quite seemed to clarify things, but instead felt like a way to avoid them. But the gift surprised me. I marveled at it, wondering about the gesture, what it meant, and why he’d given it to me.

The ballerina was everything a pink-loving girl could dream of, graceful, delicate, and beautiful. Little did I know, I’d become responsible for something so fragile, carrying the weight of guilt with each accidental break. Over the years, she broke again and again, each time glued back together by my immature, tiny hands. She traveled with me from home to home, across the country, and along the way, her arm disappeared, then her hands. Eventually, I stopped trying to fix her. She no longer danced or played “Waltz of the Flowers.” What remained was a silent, headless, armless torso, more like a salvaged Greek statue than the dancing ballerina she once was. For years, her broken body, detached head, and arm gathered dust as I walked past her, always wary that she might topple over and break once more. She no longer brought me joy; she was just a relic of a memory, one frozen moment in time, a reminder of a child who had hoped, just for a moment, that she might be loved.

The ballerina had become a beautiful burden, a silent symbol of fragility and childhood disappointment. She felt like a metaphor for life: fragile, imperfect, but still holding some kind of value. I couldn’t bring myself to throw her away, though part of me wanted to be free of the weight she carried. So, one day, I listed her as “Very Broken” on the free ads, hoping someone might see her worth. Before long, a creative woman reached out, eager to give her new life, to transform her into something entirely different. And so, I let her go, lifting her from her forlorn spot on my dresser.

Now that she’s gone, I’m not sure whether I feel elated, sad, or a bit of both. Elated because I no longer carry the burden of a broken gift, one that was given to a child with the hope of love but was weighed down by time and neglect. But sad too, because the ballerina had been a kindred spirit; a quiet companion who had traveled with me through hope and disappointment. Now, pieced together in a new form, she’s found a different kind of beauty, unique in her own broken, mended, and transformed way.