I grew up dancing. I was never a spectacular dancer, but I was pretty decent. My skill level in dance isn’t even relevant for today’s post though. What is relevant, the thing that really matters, is that I ENJOYED dancing. I absolutely loved dancing. When I graduated from high school though, that meant I also graduated from my school dance team and the opportunity to take classes at my studio. I tried to keep dancing in college, I signed up for classes the first few semesters. Things changed once I got married and subsequently pregnant. Remember the constant vomiting I talked about in a previous post? That constant vomiting had me running from the dance room in a mad panic to make it to a bathroom, so the dance classes had to stop.
Once my baby was about six months old, I tried again to find a way to dance. My two sisters and I signed up for a dance class at a local studio and were soon regretting it when we realized we were the only three people that had signed up for the class. Talk about being extremely conspicuous! My most vivid memory from that experience is having to dance across the floor by myself doing a hip hop style walk. I’m not super gangster, hip hop was not a style of dance I had a lot of experience with, so I felt extremely uncomfortable. I guess I decided that if that’s what adult dance classes were like, I’d rather not be dancing. I was too self conscious to be having a semi-private lesson with someone I didn’t know.
14 years later, I started going to classes at the gym near my house. I found a Zumba class that I LOVED! Seriously the best class ever. It was one of the few things in my life that actually got me excited. I went every week and had such a great time getting a good workout. Dancing in that class made me realize how much I had missed dancing. That class filled my need to dance for the last 2 years.
Then Jacob, one of the best Zumba instructors of all time, quit. It was the worst. I think everyone in his classes went into mourning. We all tried different instructors at the gym, but it just wasn’t the same. Once again, I found myself not dancing, but this time I was more aware of how much I missed it and wanted it in my life.
Over a year ago, while looking for some classes for my kids, I had discovered an adult dance class that was available. I put “take an adult dance class” on my yearly goals for TWO years in a row. I gave myself an out the first year though. The first year I put, “take an adult dance class OR start a monthly group for women.” I did the group for women and considered myself off the hook. This year, I didn’t give myself another option. In January, I wrote, “take an adult dance class” as one of my goals. In case you haven’t noticed, we are now approaching the end of September. That’s almost nine months that have gone by without me doing it. I’ve worked on other goals, but that one has just been sitting there neglected. A few months ago, I added the class to my calendar so I would see it every week. I still didn’t go. It’s early on a Saturday morning, so I kept making excuses about how I needed to catch up on sleep. What I think I was really concerned about was looking dumb and being embarrassed. What if everyone else in the class was an amazing dancer? I haven’t been in a dance class for 16 years! What if there was only one other person in the class and I was totally conspicuous, like the other class I had tried years ago? The bottom line was that I was scared of being embarrassed. I’m not sure what pushed me past that: maybe not having the Zumba class anymore made me more desperate to dance, or maybe I felt bad pushing my kids to do things that scared them when I didn’t face my own fears. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but something did because on Saturday morning I found myself awake at 6:50 and climbing out of bed to get my clothes on and head to the dance class. I finally did it. After almost 2 years of considering it, I actually went. It sounds pretty ridiculous when I state it like that. 2 years is an awful long time to take before doing something as simple as trying a dance class. I think I just convinced myself I didn’t really want to go, or that it wasn’t convenient. But the truth is that I DID want to give it a try and see if I liked it.
I didn’t just like it, I absolutely LOVED it. It was insanely fun. I walked out with the intention of going every week I possibly could.
All this time, I could have been dancing every Saturday morning, but I missed out because I was too chicken to try it earlier. So here’s to being less of a chicken. I don’t want to miss out on the things in life that bring me joy because I’m feeling scared and insecure.
Work In Progress 