Resurrecting buried dreams...

I started ballet when I was 7 years old. In the good old days that was very late to start, but I seemed to have picked up muscle memory through DNA and turned out to be quite a talented little ballerina and I loved the performances. I worked hard at it and had a teacher that was very good, strict and a perfectionist…

There was a lot going on in my world, my home life was not stable, and I do not have very clear memories of these years other than my ballet class and not really fitting in at school. I could perform at school and in ballet and I knew what to do… so that felt stable!

Ballet was something us 3 sisters had in common and although we did not live together anymore we all had a common thing to think about and talk about. When I visited my dad in the early years after the divorce went through and before my adoption by my step-dad, we often created plays, danced and he loved creating areas for us to simply just act. When my dad moved away with Joy and Kim, this space was taken…

At some point I decided I really wanted to be a dance teacher. I had a plan to go to Pretoria Girls High and the Ballet School nearby. It was what was recommended by my dance teacher, who had got me brochures and showed me videos and explained how hard it was all going to be. My step- dad did not like the plan at all and made sure he had a few people discourage it.

I was not deterred by it all though… I knew what I wanted! One afternoon, encouraged to work on my flexibility and have some more on my cv, my brother who was a gymnast was showing me how to do back flips on my mom and dad’s king size bed. I missed the end of the bed and came down on my head. My brother screamed, my mother ran in pulled my head into place (we laugh about this now) … and rushed me for x-rays, turned out I needed 6 months of physio and had to stop dancing. I had squashed the soft cushioning in the bottom of my spine.

I was devastated!

I tried to dance again after the 6 months of physio… but I could not bare to not be able to move like I used to. This is what kept me away from trying again and has nearly stopped me currently too.

Four years ago, my world as I knew it was shattered. The death of my boss and the slow process of the loss of my role and eventually my job and what would follow that left me in a very similar emotional place to the place I found myself in after I fell on my head.

I was reflecting over this in my quiet time with God a year ago, as the reality that I had not really grieved the loss of church space and simply moved on to the care taking of my new children. It was shocking to come to the reality of how anxious I had become… I had begun to really fear people. I tried to get help, but this was not working, and my shame was growing, and I was starting to isolate quite seriously.

I asked God what I should do… and He showed me “ballet shoes” … was He really telling me to go back to dance? After thirty odd years? The next day, Jessica’s dance teacher messaged all the moms to say she is starting a class for moms over 40 and no previous experience is needed. The timing!!! I had to enquire considering what had happened the day before in my quiet time.

In October last year I started dancing again… it was a big secret at first! I felt God would use it to heal me. It felt a bit crazy!

It has not felt like healing… it was challenging and modern is a completely different dance form and I have clearly no DNA memory of muscle memory for that. However, it took my head off anything else as I had to focus so hard in the classes. The ladies are amazing and very warm and welcoming and encouraged me on my best and worst days. This, I was reminded while teaching on trauma in the Netherlands, constitutes play… I was out of my comfort zone and taking my mind off the world outside the class for a couple of hours a week.

As the concert drew near I broke out with eczema on my hands, anxiety was the constant battle and I nearly pulled out. Last week I was ready to walk away… but, my troupe has an even number of dancers and I would be missed in the pattern and I tell my kids finish what you start and… the good mom in my head made me do it because I was afraid my kids would call me a hypocrite, while the perfectionist reminded me how bad I would do…

I did it! I was brave! I did not do it perfectly… I messed up a few times and missed an important sequence in one dance and stood on my dress in the other… and … but, overall I did well and I can honestly say this morning as I sit and write this that it was a huge battle, I fought anxiety and I shook my entire way through the weekend and nerves made my knees wobble and I nearly cried on stage twice… but I did it and when I messed up in front of hundreds of people I carried on.

This healing journey is not an easy one, the fact that I had to put myself out in front of people I know and do not know in something that I know how perfect it can be and what the standard is was huge for me.

I overcame…

My dance friends are amazing, and I am so thankful for this group of women… I am so thankful for my daughter Jessica and her friends who had a fan club going for the moms. You girls rock!

Here is to at least another year of dancing and another concert next year. It is on the 1^st of September 2019.