Losing Kate

I studied ballet from the age of three to eighteen. When I got older, I was in the studio taking classes six days a week for at least an hour and a half.

For a long time, it was my dream to be a professional dancer. It was more than a dream. It was a reality I thought was inevitable.

But that dream did not come true. I burned out in high school, and even though I danced until college, I was ready to be done.

But a couple weeks ago, a friend I made in Atlanta invited me to join her in a beginner adult ballet class. She also danced for as long as I did and took as long of a break as I did.

The first class was a lot of fun. It was strange and liberating to dress the way I wanted, to do only what I was able, and just be there for myself.

It was strange how fast the movements came back to me. I remembered how to hold my arms, and where to place my head. Even some of the songs playing were familiar.

It was everything that I remembered, and even though my legs weren’t catching up with my arms, that didn’t bother me.

But it did spark memories of the life I thought I wanted. It didn’t make me regret anything, but it made me wonder what if.

What if I didn’t slack off sophomore year of high school? What if I stretched for thirty more minutes each day? What if I followed through on this dream?

And then the following class, it began to bother me that I couldn’t move the way I wanted to, the way my body once could, the way my brain still knew how to move it.

And the next class I grew more frustrated. I just wanted to move, but couldn’t.

Dance wasn’t just a sport or a career for me. It was how I expressed myself. I was such an angsty teen, and I didn’t know how to communicate that to myself or others without ballet or scribbled down poetry in one of my many journals.

So coming back was like losing a language. It’s like I was once fluent in French, stopped speaking it, then was dropped in France.

I can still get some hackneyed phrases out, but it was once something that rolled off my tongue.

So even though I don’t regret giving up on a career that I might never have been good enough to be in, I’m still sad I lost so much of that language.

But then I remember the path I did take. A path where I became I better writer than I ever imagined. A path where I am confident that I will find success.

I haven’t realized all my authorial goals yet. But I am writing a book I believe in. I am writing a blog that I believe in.

If I had somehow managed to pull off a dancer’s career, it would probably be winding down now. And my writing career has just begun.

And while it takes off, even if it’s not how I thought it would be, I still get to show up to dance class wearing whatever ratty clothes I want.