There You Are

I don’t think that I realized that I had gone missing.

I was getting ready for my first open house after having taken over/acquired a studio that had more or less fallen into my lap.

Rumors got out that I had been a dancer and, long story short, through the convincing of a handful of dance moms, my parents, and even the landlord of the studio space, I had acquired a small dance studio whose original owner had planned to close the doors and walk away.

For the majority of my life, I had been a dancer. For the majority of my working and professional life, I had been a dancer and dance teacher.

To say that “dancer” was ingrained in my identity like the scar of a heart carved into a tree, is an understatement.

I had intended to remain a dancer forever.

However, it had come to a halt a few years before.

Life changes had taken place. I had had a baby, gotten married, moved from the busy city of Austin back to the town my parents had been living in for quite some time, had another baby…and otherwise prioritized what I thought was expected of me.

My husband was in the kitchen wrangling the two babies.

We had already made plans to separate. (The fact that me taking over the studio was his final straw, is a story that we can save for another day.)

There weren’t a whole lot of conversations happening between the two of us, as one might imagine.

I always kept moving and stayed busy creating things and growing community. I was the owner of a small fitness franchise called FIT4MOM. My mornings were spent in tennis skirts and running shoes, shuffling mothers through HIIT workouts with their babies in strollers along for the ride.

Then coming home for lunch, naps, making dinner, and the normal things that families with small children need.

But today I was in the bedroom getting ready for the open house at the dance studio that I now owned.

Reaching into the closet and digging through the drawers, I rummaged up some old staples.

A pair of purple leggings.

A backless black drapey tank dress.

A lace-backed purple bralette.

Some ballet flats.

A typical dance-event outfit I would wear knowing that I’d be switching back and forth from event host to dancing as the event went on.

A far cry from the tennis skirt and running shoes of my current fit-mom-life uniform.

Dressed. Hair done. Ready to go.

I checked the mirror.

“There you are.”

I recall saying this out loud and reaching out for the mirror as the realization, and all the feeling that went with it, washed over me.

I had been literally stopped in my own tracks by actually recognizing myself in the mirror.

I knew I wasn’t myself, but life was all happening so fast that I hadn’t stopped to assess just how much I had actually gone missing.

“I just recognized myself for the first time in years,” I told my husband.

No response.

I don’t know what I wanted. Probably a little validation, or the understanding that I didn’t even know how lost I had been.

We have to understand that this decision to choose myself over the relentless day to day of being his at home support network was, to him, hmm….a bit inconvenient.

But besides the flash of resentful irritation in his eyes, there was no response as I picked up my purse, kissed my babies on their heads, and walked out the door.

Keep showing up,

Ellen

Memoirs From the Dance Floor