Just when you figure it out

When I was dancing in my twenties, it seemed every year I slowly got a little bit wiser and more skilled in every aspect of my dancing. I also got more injured, and therefore, closer and closer to not dancing any more.

By the time I stopped, I was dancing as well as I ever had. I was more comfortable, more confident, more present in every moment. I was also seeing more chiropractors and massage therapists and physical therapists every week to manage my injuries. And I was a married 31 year old who wanted to have babies, plural.

I was finally figuring out how to be comfortable on stage, how to bring my whole true self into the performance process, right as I was giving it up and moving on.

It was sad to me that I couldn't have used my hard earned wisdom for just a little longer. It seemed unfair that I should finally get through a performance without wanting to vomit from anxiety and have it be my very last one.

That last performance was an odd experience. To feel excitement before a show instead of dread. To stand backstage, bouncing on my toes to stay warm as I waited for the whisper yell: "Places!" and not feel the usual stomach lurch when it finally came. To wish, as the applause began, that it wasn't over, that we could do it just one more time.

There are, of course, parallels to mothering my girls.

Every time we go through a new stage with Z, I am fearful, anxious, clueless. I read, I experiment, I learn some things. Then I get to go through it again with E, who, while she's a different child, provides an opportunity to apply at least some of what I learned the first time around with Z. By the time E's moving on, I feel almost comfortable with that stage of motherhood. Almost confident and present and capable.

I feel this familiar swelling inside, a feeling of beginning to own myself in this process, of knowing myself as a mother just like I ever so slowly grew to know myself as a dancer.

This is yet another reason it is sad to not have another child. This is yet another reason I find myself all too happily offering my opinion about friends' babies. Even when they don't ask for it.

In each phase, I find myself wishing I could use this self-knowledge just a little longer. In each phase, I wish I wasn't so slow in becoming who I want to be.

In each phase, I wish I could do it again, just one more time.

Instead, I am attempting something new: to carry over some of that fledgling confidence into each new phase with Z or E. To quiet the anxious voices inside that tell me I'm no good at this, that I'll mess them up, these perfect beloved creatures. To remind myself that we'll figure it out together.

I remind myself that every day is a chance to apply all I've learned along the way. My growing wisdom and confidence isn't lost just because my children are getting older. It informs every moment I spend with them, even after they leave the phase I just figured out.

That has to be enough.

Flexibility

My friend and I are in the part of the gym reserved for stretching, lying on our backs, right legs in the air. Mine is pointed up at the ceiling, knee straight, hers is in a similar spot but her knee is bent, her leg is shaking, and she is howling.

"You're so flexible! I used to be flexible!" she laments, glancing at me.

I hear this often from friends and I never know how to respond.

I'm not actually that flexible, for a former dancer?

I know, right. I used to be more flexible too?

Thanks?

Mulling my options, I say nothing and chuckle in what I hope is a supportive way but is probably just ambiguous and weird. We breathe together, imagining what our sixteen year old bodies could do, or what we think they used to be able to do, or what we wish they could have done. I close my eyes and fight the urge to push further, instead letting my shoulders drop just a little of their near constant effort.

Next to us is another woman, a girl really, with her ipod dialed up to DEAFEN and one leg up by her ear. I try to keep my eyes on my own mat but inside my head I can't help but enviously imagine, for the millionth time in my life, hip sockets that are carved open, nearly flat like dinner plates, rather than the curved, deep cups that are mine.

I also guiltily imagine her in fifty years, with hearing aids.

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I was sixteen when my hips and knees started to bother me. I was dancing most days of the week, spending hours on pointe. Standing at the barre, forcing my toes out to form a straight line with my feet, I was acutely aware that my body was never meant to do this, even more so than most bodies. My natural turn-out is closer to ninety degrees than the desired one eighty; my knees and ankles twisted and torqued to make it happen, more or less, but I wasn't fooling anyone, least of all my hip sockets.

In college, I took the train down to New York City to see a highly esteemed doctor whose office walls were crowded with a thrilling photo gallery of famous ballerinas and sports figures.

"You're a dancer?" he asked incredulously, looking at my x-rays. "Your hips are built for marathon running, my dear, not dancing."

"Yeah, well, I'm not a ballet dancer anymore, mostly modern now, so...."

"Still. Wow."

"..."

"I'll give you a prescription for physical therapy but at a certain point, your limits are your limits," he shrugged, resignedly handing me a piece of paper.

As I walked down his hallway to leave, this time ignoring the brilliant faces of ballerinas I've admired since I was a little girl, I balled up the paper in my hand. Though I would later carefully smooth it out and send it through the proper channels to get as much help as I could for my poor battered hips, right then I just wanted to squash his words.

Squash them and throw them away.

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We are fully into the swing of the school year and it's still study in adjustment. Z is clearly tired by the end of her school day and laments how little time she now has by herself. Every day it seems something brand new and yet completely, exhaustingly old blows up in our faces.

Recently it was suggested to us that we start experimenting with less structure in her home life, giving her a safe space to practice dealing with a world that is unpredictable and chaotic. Messing with her schedule is something we have been loathe to do since she was a small baby and loudly expressed her dislike of change and variety. Most of the time, we eat and sleep and play in timed chunks specifically calibrated to maximize the potential for smooth transitions.

"So she's not fond of change and she's struggling with flexibility and transitions? Hmm.... who's she like?" I was asked.

"I have no idea," I said, smiling cheekily at my obvious lie.

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Last week Z woke up sick. From her first wincing swallow, my mind raced ahead to every cancellation that would be necessary in the next few days. My list started with the kids' cancellations and progressed quickly to the total reorganization that my life and personal plans that would need to happen with a sick kid at home for at least a day or two.

It took me a few minutes to realize I was writing a to-do list instead of bringing Z a spoonful of honey and giving her a hug.

I resolved - again - to hug first next time.

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My limits are there. They are real. My emotional structure, like my hip structure, feels restricted and compressed most days, frustrating me even as I stretch myself up to its' edges.

I don't fear the wrinkly sagging of old age nearly as much as the deep, entrenching rigidity.

I know it is my job as a parent to help Z accept who she is and reach past what she thinks she's capable of. To teach her that her personal limits are strengths, are weaknesses, are real, are worth accepting, are worth stretching past.

How do we simultaneously teach, and work on ourselves, acceptance and ambition?

I know I will never, ever get my leg up to my ear. I know I will always struggle when my day changes course suddenly.

But that doesn't mean I should ever stop stretching.