Character Analysis: Barbara Gordon
Please note this low-key reads as a journal entry but I swear theres a point.
You know its funny back when I was a young girl before I got sick before it got hard to walk the story of Batgirl to Oracle was one of the few I knew from DC from how truly tragic it was.
As a hopeful to be ballet dancer myself it is the kind of story that haunts.
The story of the gifted dancer who was just to kind to the world who maybe if she was selfish and did nothing or maybe if she had another Father she could still dance still feel the feeling of going on stage and performing.
I remember dreaming of being the girl from the Nutcracker in the ballet. As it was one of my parents first dates together to go see it. I would watch renditions of it over and over again and try to perform the moves. Or watching Swan Lake the Barbie movie or the 12 dancing Princesses Barbie Movie. The latter I watched when it came out with my cousin we each got a matching Barbie doll from the movie afterwards that I cherished.
I loved dancing. I loved music. My Mother would make me tutus so I can show her my own ballets. I wanted to be a ballet dancer so badly. My parents even though money was tight with the help of my Grandparents and Great Grandparents as they all saw my dances got me ballet lessons.
I got real ballet shoes, a real tutu and ballet top and tights i was going to be a real ballet dancer. We had to drive all the way up to Bellevue far from where i used to live at the time for the lessons as they where the real deal. I remember walking into the class for the first time seeing the mirrors and the bar and the floors.
All the other girls my age where as excited as me I made a friend with a girl whose Father was a stay at home dad compared to the Mother's that where all their. He had wild stories. I remember looking forward to it every day. I remember my first and sadly only performance I had pratsiced and memorized it as best I could and didnt have to look at instructor as much as the other girls to see what we were supposed to be doing. I remember looking at the crowd trying to find my parents and brother...they weren't their a family friend had to pick me up afterwards because my brother got really sick. I tried not to be sad about it because it was the first of many but unforently the danc studio closed down and there wasnt any good ones near us we could afford. So I stopped for a couple of years my tutu and ballet shoes collecting dust.
Until a year later or so we joined the YMCA and I was going to get to dust them off when classes where regeneration became available. For the time I was going to do cheerleading and gymnastics.
But I got diagnosed with my first chronic illness shortly there after the one that had impeded my mobility. It was silly dreams of 9 year old but they where important to me. I used to be able to hike and climb run but then suddenly I could barely walk on a even path. I used to be good at soccer beating all the kids in the neighborhood and riding bikes all summer in races with them.
The nightmare of Batgirl happened to me. Or well I guess Barbara Gordan. My mobility and health declined i got more health issues now I use a cane to get around.
I dont remember my body functioning okay.
My health and struggles with mobility have defined my life weather i liked it or not. I got bullied because of it. I couldn't keep up with my peers I lost so many friends I became abnormal.
But the most important that most dont get.
I dont know who I would be without my illness. The girl I was becoming didnt like school or education or learning she hated it. Her highest grades where in PE. She liked sports and moving her body and was talented or at least showed signs of it. Early in my diagnosis I was on a swim team but had to quit that because they didnt understand me.
Because of my illness I started to love to read i wouldn't have otherwise because I was trying to escape then hell my body gave. Because of my illness I learned how i learned best because of how much school I missed. I studied out of boredom from being bed bound and having a chip on shoulder from teachers comments on weather or not I would make it in school or ne successful and found out I loved it more then anything in the world and discovered my strongest passions through it. I wouldn't have become a writer because I wouldn't have become a reader. I would have never met most of the amazing people in my life because of what happened to me like I would not have gone to my High school(s) if I was able bodied I only went because of my poor health and met my best friends same with my Middle school. Let alone college.
I dont know who I would have been without my health issues they are a stranger to me a different person entirely.
I hate the pain I went through and go through now and will go through at the cause of my health issues but its made me who I am
And I kinda like me a little bit
At least certain aspects
So I think its a price im willing to pay.
I may never get to be the Nutcracker girl
I may never get to be the girl who was physically talented again
But im something new
I cant help but think Barbara Gordon would agree...
She loved being Batgirl she loved Ballet she loved being able to walk and that is not wrong.
She loved living without the trauma of what happened to her she loved living without the medical trauma im sure she has.
But she found a whole new her that would have never come out otherwise.