from the time i was three years old, i attended dance school. i did tap and ballet as a tiny girl, then added jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip hop; all the styles. my favorite was contemporary. i have a tattoo across the top of my back that reads “dance is life at its most glorious moment,” because for me that rings true. the studio was my safe place. if i had to pinpoint a moment in my youth where i felt truly alive and fully myself, it would be anytime i was in class or performing on stage. i danced until i was 28 years old. in fact, i was pregnant for eleanor during my last recital but didn’t know it yet. i miss dancing so much. i miss the feeling of being in class and getting lost in movement. i miss how free i felt being on stage and letting people see my soul in motion.

when i was pregnant and we found out that eleanor was a girl, one of the first things that i got really excited about was putting eleanor in dancing so that she could experience how incredible it feels to dance. the desire for our kids to feel joy through the same things that brought us joy is an innocent and loving desire. but it’s so strange how these desires can take an odd hold onto our own happiness if we don’t learn to detach our own ego and trauma projections. we try so hard to protect our kids from the pain we felt and to guide them to the happiness we felt that often we (ahem, I) get really worked up when they can so easily set aside what we’ve led them to.

we put eleanor in dance when she was two and getting to see her on stage has given me such joy. this year, though, there have been several weeks where she hasn’t wanted to even get dressed to go to dancing. i’ve asked her if she wants to quit and she had always said no until recently. i told myself that i would see how she does at parent observation day and then her recital and decide then which way we should lean toward. parent observation day was monday.

i watched eleanor rehearse her dances alongside 20 other happy little dancers as all the moms watched and i immediately saw her reluctance and discontent. it pained me to see my bold, beautiful, “full of life” eleanor simply go through the motions with no feeling or joy behind what she was doing. admittedly, in my mind i wanted her to be doing better. in my mind i wanted her to be the kid that remembered all her steps and made it look effortless. but what i wanted in my mind was not what i wanted for her in my heart. i was able to realize that what i wanted in my mind was for my own ego driven reasons. in my heart, though, where ego was not the driving force, i didn’t want her to be better or to love it more, i wanted her to be happy and feel joy. but that’s not what she was feeling when the music came on. so, i knew that i should start preparing myself for this possibly being her last year in dancing.

it’s been a hard pill for me to swallow. reading that sentence back, it sounds silly. like c’mon ellie, it’s just dancing. but man, it’s really so much more for me. for me, it’s that attachment to something i feel so passionate about and wanting to share it with eleanor but her being so easy to dismiss it.

before you become a parent, you have all these ideas of who your kids will grow up to be and what they’ll love doing. you imagine that what you love they’ll love too as long as you explain to them how important it is to you and share it with them consistently. you envision that you’ll fill your afternoons and weekends with all the things you loved filling them with as a kid. no one prepares you for the shock of how it feels when all of your expectations are shattered and need to be thrown right out the window, because what you envisioned isn’t at all what you are actually going to experience. because what you envisioned just isn’t what your kids are into. in fact, if you raise your kids properly, they’ll find their own passions all on their own without you interjecting.

for me, i had this expectation of seeing eleanor practice her dances in the yard, of rushing her along as she does turns and leaps down the aisle’s of the grocery store, of hearing the non-stop stomps, taps, and shuffles anytime she’s standing still because tap dancing is what a dancer does anytime they stand still. it’s what i did. i imagined doing her hair and getting her dressed for competitions. i pictured rushing back stage after her performances to help her get changed out one costume and into the next all the while making sure we don’t mess up her hair. it’s what my mom did. alas, it may not be her journey. maybe it will change. maybe she’ll decide all of a sudden that she misses it and wants to go back. but i don’t think it’s healthy for me to hold onto that hope. haha

eleanor and i talked about how i can see that dancing just isn’t making her light up but that we still have to practice so she can do her best at her recital because her instructors and dance mates all work so hard. i told her that after her recital she wouldn’t have to worry about dancing anymore. so, yesterday morning we started practicing her dances and she was absolutely miserable. i brought up the fact that once she doesn’t have dancing anymore she’ll be able to focus more on swimming and soccer. it seemed to grab her attention. i told her that her dad and i only want her to be happy in everything she does. that if she’s not having fun and enjoying what she’s doing, there’s no point. it dawned on me that there has never been a moment when she’s gotten out of the pool at swim team where she’s seemed unhappy. when she plays soccer, she might not be the best, but she comes alive and gets better each season and has so much fun. so, i explained to her that what i want more than anything is to see her light up the way she does when she’s in the pool or running down the soccer field in anything she invests her time in. that put a smile on her face and it really put things into perspective for me. i told her that i will be proudest knowing that my kid feels joy and excitement doing what she loves. it was almost like she knew that it would be hard for ME to have her stop dancing and she needed to know that even though it will be hard for me all that matters is her happiness. as soon as she realized that i truly just want her to be happy, she got right up and started practicing her dances knowing that it was the next step to being able to put dance behind her. a part of me was crushed while the rest of me felt peace.

kids are smart man, and so intuitive. their genuine ability to know what they want without yet being tainted by their ego is so precious. i think, more than anything, our kids just need to know and feel that they are loved no matter what. that is what they will carry that along with them to battle their ego for the rest of their life. i wish eleanor was a dancer, yes. parents wish their kids were a lot of things. but that shit is wildly out of our control. what we can control, though, is how we let our kids know that they have our support. this is something i’m still learning about and working on every day.

eleanor is seven years old. she’s in first grade and really coming into her own. she is so much her own incredible person and i can see glimpses of who she will be as she continues to grow. she’s independent, knows so much about how our world works, won’t take no for an answer, pays attention to everything that is going on around her, and is really confident about who she is and what she wants. lately, instead of celebrating how much her behavior reflects her sense of safety and security and full confidence in what she likes and doesn’t, i find myself feeling challenged by the person she’s becoming. but folks, this is called projecting. i, myself, would have loved to have felt true genuine safety and security to be myself from day one the way eleanor does, my goodness. this girl, she will move mountains and be unapologetically herself if i could just get out of her way. so, i think i’ll work on doing just that while letting her know that i’m here cheering her on and wishing nothing more for her than her true happiness.

man, being a parent is hard. but slowing down and understanding that we have no ownership over them or their happiness is crucial. what i am learning is that they alone should be in charge of that. it’s our job to support them and be there for them and love them no matter what while also taking care of ourselves so that we can take care of them. the more we can understand that in even the tiniest moments, i think the better chance we have at cultivating a really cool environment for our babies to create and discover their own happiness and their own joy completely independent of ours.

i’m so excited to see eleanor live happily and find the things that she loves. so so excited.