I've Got a Feeling I Just Can't Shake.

When I first started belly dancing, I just did it for fun. After almost three years, and getting to a point of being not bad, I've become more serious about it. Kind of. I am methodically proficient, but I lack the grace and emotional freedom to get there. Though I believe that with more time, I may.

I discussed this with my instructor once, and she told me that she could see that I wouldn't let go. That she knows that I feel a little silly and that is a big part of my restriction. She is right.

That, and my subconscious is constantly pointing to the clock hands, showing me that there is little time left before I am: TRAGIC.

At 43, I think a lot about this window I have: open, but for a few more inches. The waft of air that drifts between youth and age. Subtle during these years, but more turbulent and frame-rattling as they pass. In other words, I don't want to be that 50-year-old wearing a plaid mini-skirt, over-the-knees, and pigtails who asks, "What?"

So, last night, at the Bellydance Superstars show, I was seated next to a few middle-aged-plus-ten women whom I recognized from chatting around the tables where all the commerce was happening. We talked during intermission and I learned that they are from Battle Creek and that the three of them have their own dance troupe. (Aside: I love that almost every major city in Michigan has a belly dance studio. Or two.) I sized them up, not in an unkind, judgmental way, but in one that took note of everything I feared. And I paused.

I was on pause until dinner tonight when I relayed all of this to Ben. I asked, "Do yo think they are in denial, or they are liberated?" And he said, "If they feel liberated, then they are. And nothing anyone thinks about them can change that."   

Oh.

Thanks, baby.

:)