I’m performing my first solo in a pole dance showcase tomorrow, and later this month I’ll be celebrating my fourth pole anniversary. It feels surreal—to feel this alive now, knowing that only four years ago, when I found pole dancing, I was dead. I stumbled upon pole dancing during the darkest moment of my life, when I was a body detached from a soul, passively navigating the world, no longer participating in my own life. I had just come out of an abusive relationship—still