Dancing in the Living Room

I love to dance. When I hear music, it’s almost physically impossible to not move to it. I took ballet and tap as a kid, I danced in high school and college. I used to go out dancing with my friends. Dancing is a wonderful physical activity, and truth be told, a remarkable boost to the soul. Dancing can be joyful; a celebration of life, of happiness, of all things good and wonderful in the world. Dancing can be a mournful lamentation. Dancing can be sexy and erotic and as close to sex in public as possible without being arrested. ;) It can be flirtatious. It can be angry. It can be ridiculously silly. Dancing can tell a story. Dancing with a partner can be so romantic you forget to breathe—everything and everyone around you, completely forgotten. Dancing always made me happy; it was impossible not to smile when I was dancing, impossible not to move my body when music was playing. And years ago, I stopped.

Don’t get me wrong. I was never a good dancer, but enjoyment, I believe, makes up for lack of skill. I never had an aspiration to be a prima ballerina and spend half my life en pointe; I was never going to turn the dancing world on its ear. Dancing was just something I loved and enjoyed, and I did it every chance I got.

Until the last year or so, I had forgotten that; and that’s not all I had forgotten. I had disregarded the fact that I have dreams, wants, aspirations, enjoyments, desires, opinions, viewpoints, beliefs, ideas. When I got married years ago, I became my husband’s wife, but made the mistake of letting that be ALL that I was. The things I loved to do took a back seat to my new husband, my new marriage, my new life—not because my husband asked it of me, but because I allowed it to happen. Those things that had previously defined me, I mistakenly ignored. I allowed myself to become my husband’s wife, and nothing and no one else. Then, before I could blink, I had a child, and not only was I “wife”, I was “mother”. Those are wonderful people to be; I am loved far more deeply than I could ever possibly deserve, and I wouldn’t trade my beloved family for anything in the world. Lately, though, I have realized that in being only those people all of these years, I have somehow misplaced myself. I have been gone for a long time, and until recently, I hadn’t even missed me!

I am beginning to remember that I love theater, old movies, classic novels, plays on words, reading. I am a romantic at heart, how could I have forgotten that? I believe strongly about certain things, I have my own set of values; there are things and people I would fight for to the end. I love to laugh, and have a silly sense of humor (unfortunately, it is usually only me that cracks up at my jokes). I LOVE to dance. Amazingly, all of these things that I am slowly remembering make up the sum total of me; that person that I had pushed aside and shoved away so often that I finally just disappeared years ago. I would call this a midlife crisis (I turn 40 in 5 months), but cannot in good faith call this slow resurrection of myself anything other than something amazingly positive: A midlife recovery.

And so, I turn on my Ipod, now, and dance in my living room; I dance as my husband’s wife, my children’s mother, and as me.

Until my next pause,

L-