WordDance

I’ve loved to write for almost as long as I’ve loved to dance. I’ve loved to dance for almost as long as I could walk.

The birth of my first child saw the beginning of the end of my short-but-sweet dancing stint. Family life had become all-consuming, and the subsequent births of two more children did nothing to remedy that. I was not one of those mothers who could do it all.

I sought alternatives to the factory-inspired kind of education. That’s when I stumbled upon Montessori — and fell in love. All three of my children attended Montessori all the way through middle school. The philosophy and method inspired me so much that I studied to become a Montessori teacher as soon as I could.

I loved the life I made for myself, but somewhere along the line, weeks turned into months which turned into years. Life presented obstacles and I slowly began to lose myself. I was forgetting about the things I loved to do. I was forgetting to seek new experiences, to find joy.

Life got harder and threw some whoppers at me as if to see if I was strong enough. It turned out I was. I could handle anything that came my way —divorce, then cancer. I kept plodding along. Things seemed to get better for a while. Then they took a turn for the worse.

One of my children began to have health issues and then I got my second cancer diagnosis. This was my wake-up call. Every part of my being was telling me to pay attention — not only to what was going on around me, but especially to what was going on inside.

I was keeping it together. Taking care of myself as I underwent cancer treatments while trying to figure out my child’s health challenges. But things started to unravel. My relationship with my partner of several years began to break down — and ended traumatically. I felt like I had just been clobbered over the head. Everyone has a breaking point, and this was mine.

It was a very rough time, but I had good people in my life to lean on. I talked, they listened. I remembered the cathartic power of writing. I had adopted a journalling practice after my recent diagnosis. It was needed now more than ever. Writing created so much insight and clarity. The pen gave my thoughts a voice and the paper provided a platform to speak from — it was the thing that kept me sane. Layers upon layers of fog began to clear, revealing so many truths I had kept hidden from myself. This newfound clarity created an urgency in me like never before. I needed to get to work on all the things in my life that I could now see needed to change.

So here I am, finding myself again. Listening to that emerging voice. The steps I take are a little shaky, but my resolve is steady. Now is the time to choose my own path and to walk it. This blog — my writing venture — is part of that path. I’m happy and grateful to be taking you with me.