Losing what used to define her felt like the end of the world.
Over time, it became a turning point. When perseverance stopped meaning holding on and started meaning learning how to let go.
Opening Scene
It’s around 2:30 p.m. in Chicago’s North Kenwood neighborhood. Sydney opens the door with a wide smile, her energy filling the space right away. Four of her six cats move around the house. As she introduces them one by one, she’s welcoming and excited to tell her story.
The living room feels lived in, as this was the house that she grew up in her whole life. There’s books on pretty much every surface. Plants stretch from window to window. General Hospital plays quietly on the TV. The decor reads like a genuine document of Sydney and of her mother layered with years of taste, care, and great memories.
As we move through the room, she talks to me easily, excitement bubbling just beneath the surface. We’re walking upstairs, where her room waits for the interview. In four hours, she’ll be walking in a fashion show. For now, we’re here, cats circling, daylight fading slowly, I get a chance to learn about her story before I ask any questions.
Then
Sydney started dancing at three. She doesn’t remember a life without it. For her ballet was fun and disciplined at the same time, something rooted in love, structure, and routine. By high school, dance was the thing that she would be doing for the rest of her life.
At ChiArts, she was a part of the dance conservatory. Her future lived in studios and on stages, ideally with the American Ballet Theatre in New York. “In some pointe shoes, a leotard, some tights,” she says, laughing. “And maybe an Apple Watch!”
Ballet was the pursuit of perfection. Seven days a week. Multiple classes a day. No breaks. She thrived in that environment, earning praise from her teachers and peers, landing principal roles, and performing solos at ChiArts and her home studio in productions like The Nutcracker and Faith. Her success showed her that this was who she was meant to be.
Everything else faded into the background. Academics barely mattered to her. “It was a known fact that I would just go to dance,” she says. Dance was who she was.
Until her body couldn’t keep up.
The In-Between
By the winter of her junior year, the physical toll caught up to her. The padding in her spine wore down to the point that movement became painful, the right side of her body tensing up after every movement. The progress stopped abruptly. Her dream started to fade away.
The crash was emotional as much as physical. Depression and anxiety followed. The expectations from teachers, family, and herself didn’t disappear just because her body gave out. As she nervously grabbed her arm she shared with me: “I felt like a failure because everybody expected this of me, this is what I was supposed to do. Who am I if I’m not dancing?”
That summer, she earned a scholarship to Sarasota Ballet in Florida, but the environment only intensified the anxiety she’d been carrying. Ballet stopped making her happy. Comparison was constant. The pursuit of perfection felt suffocating.
When she returned to Chicago, Sydney entered treatment, first outpatient, then inpatient, stepping away from school entirely while focusing on her mental health struggles and an eating disorder tied closely to her identity and body image after dance. Returning to a conservatory environment like ChiArts felt impossible.
She transferred to Little Black Pearl Art & Design Academy in her neighborhood of North Kenwood. The shift was quieter, freer. She made new friends. She laughed more. She graduated.
Over time, space started to open up for something else.
Now
Today, at 21 years old, Sydney is building toward a future in modeling. The idea of it was always in the back of her head, she dreamt about doing some with her ballet career, modeling leotards, tights and costumes but after she stopped dancing, its appeal became greater. Her dream is the catwalk, Vogue, Victoria’s Secret. Spaces where movement still matters, but control and self definition come first. “Modeling brings someone’s vision to life, like dance did,” she says. “But there’s more of a sense of self.”
Over the past three years, she’s worked with friends on editorial and beauty shoots, modeled for local brands, and even collaborated with emerging musical artist Skaiwater. Art never left her life, it just changed form.
I followed her later that evening to a fashion show at Iridium Lab in downtown Chicago. She’s walking for Lawless Skate Co, surrounded by other models, designers, and creatives. Once we arrived at the store I saw Sydney’s personality blossom the most. I could see the light in her eye as she gracefully walked through the bustling room talking to friends that recognized her there, networking with people ranging from potential collaborators and people admiring her modeling all while supporting all her fellow models with claps and a big smile.
What’s different now is what she values. She’s let go of the idea that her worth comes from other people’s approval alone. “There’s so much life outside of dance,” she says. “I didn’t know that before.”
Closing
Sydney’s reasons for living have shifted. Friends. Family. Curiosity. Creating new experiences. Most importantly, herself.
Art is still everywhere in her life, “I just feel drawn to all the artsy things, especially living in Chicago. It touches my life every day in the makeup that I do and the dances that I see on TikTok. I'm not me without the arts.”
Later, as the show winds down, the room slowly empties. Sydney laughs with friends near the door, still glowing from the night. I look forward to seeing what rooms Syd continues to light up in her future.
