September is halfway over, which means we are definitely
“back to our regularly scheduled programming” – i.e. school, piano, dance,
chaos. If someone had told me a few years ago that I was going to find myself
one day becoming a dance mom I would have thought they were nuts. When my son
came to me and asked if he could take a tap class I never would have imagined
that opening that door would be like opening up a whole new reality for us.
Tap, jazz, ballet, hip-hop - dance has become a massive part of our lives. We
are at the studio almost every day - back and forth, often with all my wild
kids in tow - and although there are days when it is overwhelming, I couldn’t
imagine it not being our life.
I’ve
had a few people tell me they think I’m crazy, or wonder why on earth I do it.
Doesn’t it seem like maybe it’s a bit too much? Here’s the thing- my son
doesn’t just dance because it’s a fun after school activity, he dances because
he MUST. He HAS to dance; it’s a part of his soul. He told me once that when
he’s dancing, sometimes he feels so exhausted and even frustrated, but even
then it makes his heart happy. He doesn’t walk, he dances- down the street,
through the grocery store, around the house, on the playground. So when people
try to tell me that maybe I should make him scale back so that my life is
“easier” I sort of just smile and shrug it off, because I know that, although
they are well intentioned, they just don’t get it.
I
never had anything that I loved so much, was so passionate about, at such a young
age, and I often wonder what it would have been like if I had. Maybe I would
have felt less lonely as a kid. Not that I was a loner. I had friends, I
participated in some after school activities, but I never really felt like I
fit anywhere. I never found that place and space that was mine. I always felt a
bit awkward and alone. I never had that “thing” that made me excited about
life. That is what dance is to my boy. Dance is his heart. He has friends in
school, and he fits in for the most part, but when he’s at the studio he’s more
himself. When he’s there he’s with his people, his tribe. There he can be the
boy, that instead of sitting in front of the big screen TV to watch hockey or
basketball, he’s sitting (or often standing and dancing) in front of the TV
watching “West Side Story”- and its not weird for him to be that boy.
Also,
the truth is that he isn’t the only one that has found a tribe through dance: I
have too. We have a dance family now. Its not just the other kids that he dances
with; its their parents, siblings, even grandparents, that are all a part of
something- this crazy dance life that is sometimes chaotic and often a lot of
work, but so incredibly worth it.
Sometimes
I watch him up on the stage and its hard not to cry; because I’m proud of him
for how hard he works, for his determination, for the sweat and sometimes tears
he puts into it, but most of all because I know that in that moment he feels so
incredibly alive. You know that saying “too much of a good thing”? Well, its
total crap. There’s no such thing. And that feeling, that awesome “good thing”
feeling that he gets when he dances, I hope he always has that in his life,
whether its through dance or one day through something else, there’s never too
much of it. And I will always want to support him in finding it.
Even if it means schlepping all my kids back and forth to the dance studio every day.
