This is how we improve Mondays.

I realized somewhere between the sixth and the twelfth grades that I missed ballet. I only did it all through my childhood and it was the one thing I knew that I was good at and nobody else (outside of my little dance world) was. It made me different. At least, that was my mother's argument when she told me not to give it up; surely I'd regret it later, and later would be too late. "Being different," however, is hardly the best argument to employ with a twelve-year-old. Say "everyone will envy you," "this is going to make you really popular" or "one day you're going to look back and be so happy you listened to me." Well, not so. Instead, I hear, "She told you so."

After ballet I played volleyball. I was spending time with my friends, I was in with the "in crowd", and I had the "oh-she's-on-varsity" mentality. For many years I worked hard, made my way up the food chain, and hated every single second of it. Quitting just wasn't an option, because then I'd have been 0/2. I don't regret sticking with it. I regret not sticking with ballet in the first place.

Then I moved to Chicago from a small city in eastern Washington that nobody ever pronounces correctly. Chicago's about as far away from my high school and volleyball teams and family as I can get. The freedom is exciting, not having to play volleyball is relieving, and dancing again is finally something I can enjoy. I'm starting to realize how young I was when I did all of this the first time around. I had much better turn out than handwriting, I was more comfortable doing a double pirouette than long division, I wore my first pair of point shoes before my first bra, and the last time I wore a leotard I probably weighed eighty-two pounds. Getting used to the mirrors again is a lot more difficult this time. It didn't seem the least bit awkward for me when I was a kid--I grew up around it. I was always the youngest and most confident in my class, and ballet was the one place where I wasn't quiet as a mouse. My classmates in school intimidated me and hardly ever included me, but in ballet I was a show-off. My instructors complimented my square hips and high battements, but I was always the first to be scolded for talking during class.

I wish I hadn't given it up. I think a lot of things in my teenage years that would have been different--my body, my grades, my friends, my self-confidence, and my general level of happiness. At least now, I have this opportunity to try to re-learn something I once loved so much, something that was such an important part of me. Even though it's the most frustrating thing in the world to be wobbly on releve and to have like the worst alignment ever, it's the thing that's getting me out of bed on Monday mornings and I couldn't be happier about it.

"I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size." -Adaptation, a movie based on Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief