Beginnings are always messy.
– John Galsworthy

So I was all prepared to try to get back to class this week and in the spirit of not being totally out of it, I decided to do a little home barre to try to get my body to remember something, anything. Tendus, okay. Plies, okay, extensions, okay. Balances, okay. Pirouettes, meh. Balances en releve, meh… balances on one foot en releve, oh crap. The next morning getting dressed for work, I could not even walk out of the house in heels, so I grabbed a pair of flats and was still in so much pain, I had to run back in the house to change clothes so I could put on a pair of New Balance. It goes without saying that one should never wear New Balance with a skirt suit. Nooooo. *finger wag*. I have been in New Balance all week long. That makes me sad because first of all I am not a girl to go to work in jeans and sneakers and more importantly I knew that this was going to be slow going but not at the pace of a snail with arthritis and the gout.

Come on foot, get with the program! I’ll take you out for a pedicure and a massage if you are nicer to me. Pretty please!

I’m getting ready to go back to ballet class. It’s interesting that it’s more than just trying to figure out where I put my shoes and my water bottle, I’m nervous! I haven’t been nervous about ballet class in a while. I’ve gotten nervous about trying classes in new places but I haven’t had the queezy tummy nerves about my own ballet class in a long time! I’ve been away a while now and I’m concerned that I will have forgotten everything, I’m concerned that I’ve managed to get so out of shape that I’ll be winded before I even get past the warmup, I’m concerned about trying to wiggle into a leotard after a couple of months with little to no exercise!!! I might actually skip the leotard for a bit. Tip: NEVER weight yourself on a Sunday night after a weekend of pasta, turkey burgers, and yummy desserts. Just don’t.

I realize that there is not a miracle waiting to happen, my first classes back I am pretty much guaranteed to be sucky. Majorly sucky, truth be told. Horrifically, possibly massively and comically sucky. I’m okay about it, I guess. I get to go back to class. And with a lot of work and focus, maybe I can move past the major sucky and get back to my regular level of suck. That would be good.

I’m also  little nervous about my injury. It’s sort of a permanent deal so I don’t want to make it worse. I realize that I have to learn how to work with it and that means having to actually work with it – as in, go to class and see what happens. And that takes an amount of faith – faith and wisdom – which I hope I have enough of so that I can make good decisions about what I can and can’t do and how to best manage myself as I go back to dancing. In the end, putting my body back into class is the easy thing – the real challenge will be getting my head back into it.

So to make myself feel better and put my head in the right place, here are some thoughts – maybe they will help you too.

Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

~Winston Churchill

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

~Anatole France

Life is no straight and easy corridor along

which we travel free and unhampered

but a maze of passages,

through which we seek out a way,

lost and confused, now and again

checked in a blind alley.

But always, if we have faith,

a door will open for us,

not perhaps one that we ourselves

would have ever thought of,

but one that will ultimately

prove good for us.

~A.J. Cronin

Now let’s dance. All will be well.