Several months ago, my daughter started begging me to let her take a dance class. She practiced dancing, alongside Barbie, every evening while watching "Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses." It was cute and I thought it might be fun.
I started looking around town at different options and soon contemplated letting her continue dancing with Barbie in the living room. The tuition costs were a bit above my comfort level due to my daughter's tendency to lose interest in just about everything after a week or two. The search continued, and I made a phone call to one studio after reviewing their website. They were already a week in to the session and wouldn't let anybody else join. I cursed them. I became determined.
I stumbled upon the 8th Street Studio of Dance website. I made a phone call. They were already quite full for the session - but they would see what they could do and give me a call back. They did. In order to let my daughter enroll, the instructor decided to hire a helper. We were in. Brynn was estatic and I bought the cutest leotard ever (for her.)
We went to the first class and she was absolutely in heaven. She lit up. She smiled the entire time. Tuesdays became known as "Dance-Days" in our house -- all other days were just the days we had to wait for "Dance-Day."
I'm not proclaiming she's the next star ballerina, but she has found something that she really enjoys and I would have continued taking her to "Dance-Day" until she said she was done. Sadly, the day arrived early when the studio decided to close their doors after this year's Spring recital. The three owners had kept the studio alive for at least 25 years and for their very logical and reasonable reasonings -- they had to close.
Today was the Spring Recital. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Stories were shared about how the current students -- now teenagers, college students -- have been attending the studio with these three women since they were 4 years old. I cried about 5 times. I am beyond words grateful that we were able to experience what a dance class truly is meant to be, but I am sad that Brynn will not be one of those high school seniors up there dancing her farewell solo. Her dance instructor shared a quote by Dr. Seuss that has been helping her get through this and it went something like this "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
We're trying to smile in our house... but Brynn collapsed on my lap tonight and started crying. "I'm just so sad that I won't have dance class with Katie anymore!" I agreed with her that I was sad too, but that we'd go to dance class somewhere else and that helped a bit...but then she thought about Katie again and started to sniffle again.
I'm trying to figure out why I'm being so emotional about this - logically, I shouldn't be. We'd only been attending classes there for roughly 4 months. She's still able to take dance classes at other studios. I think I'm sad because this didn't feel like a typical dance studio. It was like walking into a loving home where all your friends were already there and you all decided to learn a new dance and wear some twirly skirts. It was a place that gave Brynn self-esteem. It was a place that brought her such intense joy that part of me is fearful that this magic will not transfer to another dance studio. It's yet another example that things change, people grow up, people move on and blah-de-blah-blah.
So, I'm firmly in a big ol' pool of bittersweet.
