How many of you have been told something like this by your kids or partner:
- "you love dancing more than you love me"
- "you're never home any more - all you do is dance"
- "why don't you ever talk about anything but dancing?"
- "you spend so much money on dance lessons - can you still afford to pay college tuition/make retirement contributions/pay the mortgage?"
- (etc.)
I'm not a parent, but I am a partner. I feel extremely lucky that only one of these has happened to me: the very first one.
I've often told my story of how I learned to dance with my wife as my partner, and how she quit for a few years to focus her energy and attention on completing her PhD. She returned to dance later, but in the meantime I had established a partnership with someone else.
The part of the story I don't usually tell is how difficult it was to navigate her return.
You see, wife and I learned Standard together, and we loved the style. Never wanted to try another. So when my coach paired me with someone much more skilled than me, Standard was the style we started with, because the gap between us was narrowest.
Problem is, that partnership was (and is)
ridiculously harmonious. I can honestly say I have never been on a team with a better dynamic, with respect to shared goals, similar attitudes to work and competition, and temperamental compatibility all at once (and I've been on a great many teams, as a lifelong athlete). Fortunately, my temperamental compatibility is even higher with my wife, but when it comes to dance goals and work attitudes, we do not line up perfectly--we both need to make some compromises for the sake of the partnership.
So when my wife came back, she wanted to take up Standard again. But I was not willing to throw away my competitive partnership, and that's when she said "
you love dancing more than you love me."
Luckily, the story has a happy ending. We decided to test-drive Smooth for a while, and it turns out that that style is more fulfilling of her desire to be expressive, and better for our strengths and interests as a couple. Had that not come to pass, my ultimate decision would have been to drop my Standard partnership...and I would feel obliged to mask my deep sadness about it forever. A choice between bad outcomes on that path, but at least I was aware of the cost I'd be paying.
And how many of you have changed (or bowed out of) your family's plans because a dance event popped up that you wanted to do instead? Or the opposite - cancelled your participation in a scheduled (and paid for) dance event because you felt it was more important to be with your family at that time?
A mix of both.
There are a handful dance events on the calendar that are "non-negotiable". My other life events have to get out of the way for those. Practices and lessons, by contrast, are totally mutable; my only goal there is to make every effort to
reschedule rather than
cancel. "Lesser events", which cannot be rescheduled, I attend in an opportunistic fashion. I'll cancel one for a family event without fuss.
But for once-in-a-lifetime events like a marriage or significant birthday? I cancel even a major dance event. I'm still fairly young and healthy, so I feel confident I'll have lots more dance chances in my life.
Then again, nothing I said above falls into the category of "popped up unexpectedly and I canceled other plans to attend." I've almost never done that, in either direction. But I doggedly insist on following through with my commitments, no matter how minor, as a rule. Dance events don't get any greater or lesser consideration in that regard.
(which is not some kind of humble-brag virtue statement or anything. I just don't like changing plans; it always makes me feel unhappy and insecure to some degree)
How do we respond to questions and comments like the ones at the top?
How do we weigh our own desire for personal fulfillment through dancing (after all, dance is not just physical activity) against the needs or wants of those we love, and for whom we are (to varying degrees) responsible?
For me, it's case-by-case most of the time. Dance is always going to be there, so the question is how much I need it
right now. Since it is a form of meditation for me, I count it as a self-care activity, and my need for self-care fluctuates depending on the other events in my life.
If it is a question of
need or
responsibility, on the other hand, dance must take a back seat. Because dance will still be there tomorrow, but my loved ones won't be if I don't do what's necessary to keep them safe and well.
