(take the specific dance style references out, and this describes my sentiments exactly).
From Traci's blog:
Many, many years ago (four? five? six?) I was quite addicted to tango.
I went alone to my first milonga. I didn't know anyone who danced. I had never taken a class.
Soon thereafter, I danced three times a week at least, danced with everyone who asked, danced with confidence.
My skill, relatively high in a street-cred sorta way, never equaled my desire -- and that's how I liked it.
To remain pretty good, to remain forever an amateur.
A perpetually talented beginner.
Because if I was decent by accident, then my potential was always unfulfilled.
So what would have happened had I given it my time, my love, my discipline, my passion?
Much harder, what if I would have given it my failure, my inability, my letdowns?
I don't know if I've ever given my failure to any thing or any one.
I don't let myself be bad at anything, especially anything about which I really care.
The first taste of failure makes me wanna change direction.
When I hit the glass ceiling (of my own talent) in tango, I didn't take classes.
I never even bought a decent pair of dance shoes!
No, I decided that having good balance was enough. Being able to dance a fast milonga was enough.
And, for a while, it was.
Samba, however.
Maybe because it's not a couples dance; maybe because it's a formal dance that doesn't prohibit smiling.
Maybe because I'm finally able to enjoy more than my successes.
I'm taking classes: I'm okay one day and awful the next; I stand in the back of the room.
Tuesday, I fell during a fast song. Tonight, I embarrassed myself with my own enthusiasm.
I theorize about how our eccentricities and faults in dance class are always relative to hurdles in real life.
I want to know that I can move past being the committed (or, in my dreams, prodigious) amateur.
I want to fail at being fantastic.
(And if I get that far, we'll start imagining what might come next.)
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