I used to dance...

So, I have this secret I have kept to myself all of these years: When I was a little girl I wanted so badly to be a prima ballerina. I would spend hours in my room pretending to be a dancer. I would leap and twirl in the secrecy of my room; imagining that I was the beautiful and graceful dancer that girls like myself wanted to be. In fact, I kept dancing secretly long after my ballet classes ceased to exist. I'm not sure why, except that despite my very realistic nature, I still had some glimmer of hope that I would someday be able to live out my dreams.

Well, this weekend I overheard thumps and Ashley Tisdale's version of Kiss the Girl from the Little Mermaid booming from my preschool aged daughter's room. I called my husband over to the door as we both listened at the door to figure out what she could possibly doing behind her Tinkerbell painted purple door, plus we wanted to be sure she wasn't going to hurt herself in her rampage. I secretly knew though... She was now the famous artist dancing and singing her way to stardom. I had always thought I was "different" for imagining this great world of fame with myself in center stage, but maybe not... I mean, this overactive imagination could possibly be a genetic defect, but what I really believe is that every little girl has a dream that we act out in our heads or behind closed doors; hoping that one day these dreams will come to life. Although, somewhere along the line, our dreams are often extinguished or stifled for numerous reasons... Possibly we find ourselves embarrassed by our vanity. Maybe others have made us feel weird that we have such preposterous ideas of who we want to be (not coordinated enough, not smart enough, the list goes on). Sometimes we just grow up and realize the odds are not in our favor. We all have our own reasons for giving up hope for our sometimes outlandish dreams, unfortunately. My own personal story? Well, it is seasoned with a little of all of the above. So... what did we find when we opened the door? She was dancing, of course. She just smiled at us and said "What? I'm dancing!"

Coincidentally, this weekend my friend and I had made plans to take our daughters to see the movie version of the musical Mama Mia (despite the looks of poor judgement I got from others). My daughter and I both loved the movie, but mostly, we loved the music! We went straight from the theater to the store to buy the soundtrack and then straight home to listen to it in her room (her idea). When my daughter was younger her and I used to dance in her room to children's songs by They Might Be Giants and other fun, yet edgy, songs before bedtime. Somewhere along the way we lost that tradition over the last couple of years. I had been so busy with school and she became more interested in Barbie; however, the Mama Mia soundtrack rejuvenated our little tradition once again because not only was the music is so inspiring, but the idea of people breaking out into random song and dance made me want to move to that tiny Greek island where the movie was supposedly set. Imagine how much less violence would exist if the world was full of people who felt compelled to sing all the time. Anyway... Thanks to our new motivation, we spent the greater part of the night dancing in her room...like little girls - her as the little girl she is, and me as the little girl I am at heart.