Before the pandemic, I was dancing nearly every day of the week. I had worked myself back into the kind of shape that allowed me to keep up in class with kids half my age, and I was having more fun than I’d had in a really, really long time.

It’s coming up on nine months since last I took a dance class with any sort of consistency, and it’s breaking my heart. Not just because of the atrophied muscles, but that is definitely part of it. Mostly it’s that I lost my happy place.

Dance class has always been my sanctuary, since as far back as I can remember. Every now and again I lose sight of this, and more than a little time passes before I inevitably find myself back in the studio. And it’s always the best kind of homecoming.

My daughter has kept up with virtual dance classes since the switch was made back in the Spring and watching her perform this weekend so inspiring. So inspiring, in fact, that I’ve decided to enroll in a few classes of my own next semester. And even just thinking about that makes me smile inside.

Like Allegra Kent says, once a dancer….