Waltz

Okay.....

I understand I have written about dance lately and such, but it really excites me.

I just had my first private lesson. I am doing a 10 week session on the Waltz.

I have always loved the waltz. The women are so graceful and beautiful. Not the beautiful that the world defines, but a completely different kind of beautiful.

Saturday night I was trying on some clothes, including several dresses. My self-esteem was dropping quickly as I realized I looked like a football player who had put on a dress. I didn't look beautiful. I didn't even really look like a woman. This was a crushing blow. It has been so long since I have felt beautiful, truly beautiful.

It's hard to feel beautiful when you have a face full of acne, you are overweight, you don't know how to wear make up, and you just really prefer sweat pants to anything else. So, here I am in a major self-esteem slump heading into my Monday night waltz lesson, thinking "ugly girls need not apply".

But slowly, as I learn more and more technique and move past the basic steps, I begin to feel better. I realize I am gliding. I am graceful. And while I know I am paying him, there is a man who is inviting me to dance, teaching me to move in a way that reminds me of princesses and royal balls, and treating me with the utmost respect because that is just what ballroom people do. And I loved every minute of it, but especially the minute when my imagine successes are confirmed by my instructor with an excited, "Kim, that was perfect!"

My heart just about left my chest when I was told I was doing something beautiful, which I considered beyond me because I am not a stereotypical beautiful girl, perfectly.

I can diet all I want and use all of the acne medication I can find and in the end I would only be a skinny girl with clear skin. But with ballroom, I can feel beautiful regardless of my size or the clearness of my skin.

And I know, I should feel beautiful because God made me that way and He sees me that way, but ladies, I know you will understand, sometimes we just need to feel it.

Ballroom is my chance to escape the modern world, where woman are judged by what they wear, their shape and size, and yet are fighting to do all the things and be all the things that men are. Ballroom is my chance to go back to a world where the woman follows the man's lead, but is adored and treated as though she is adored. Where despite her size, shape, or ability to match the standard of beauty, she can be beautiful.