Just found this letter in my files. If you want shivers, read it all the way through.
From: Kathryn Moon
Subject: Testimonial: How I Became a 40+ year old Dancer
I was always too old
I met you several weeks ago at DeAnza College. I thanked you for helping me become a dancer in m 40’s, and you asked me to send you my story. Here it is.
I have held mostly clerical jobs most of my life. I have always known I was smart and could probably do anything, but never could figure out what that might be. Several years ago I mustered the courage to go to graduate school in sociology. I got A’s but was miserable and finally dropped out after 3 years. I went back to word processing, feeling more dissatisfied than ever. I read several “do-what-you-love” type books, but they didn’t help at all because I couldn’t figure out what I loved except dancing, which was of course out of the question because I was too old.
I had been too old my whole life. I wanted to be a ballerina when I was 5, but my parents didn’t let me take lessons for financial and other reasons. By the time I was 9, I believed it was too late, because I had heard that ballerinas had to start their training very young. When I was 18, I met some dancers who had started at 9 or 10, and I realized I had been wrong. But I knew 18 was too old. When I was 25, I met a dancer who had started in college. I wished I had stared in college but now I was too old. And so on.
I was always too old. I even signed up for a ballet class in my late 20’s. When I didn’t catch on right away, I chalked it up to my age and dropped out. In graduate school I started folk dancing. This was wonderful, and it didn’t require years of training. But the fact that I liked it and was good at it only increased my resentment about the great ballet career I never had.
So whenever I would get depressed by my work situation, I would start feeling sorry for myself that I never got ballet lessons and that now it was too late. I put lots of energy into trying to think of other types of work that would make me happy, but I always drew a blank. I knew I had to ‘get over’ this ballet idea and move on, but I was stuck regarding what to move on to. I thought about teaching folk dancing or ballroom dancing, but I didn’t want to teach.
I think I was 40 when I read your book. In my word processing job, I had become somewhat interested in computers. My partner had offered to help me go back to school in computer science, but after my graduate school fiasco, I was reluctant to plunge in again. I couldn’t bear to try something new and be disappointed again.
I was commuting by train to my job in San Francisco, about 50 minutes each way. I spent my commute reading your book and writing and reflecting. I had ‘aha’s’ in almost every chapter Your assertion that I probably already knew, secretly, what I wanted to do made me realize I would have to deal with this dancing thing. I had always thought that if I were somehow miraculously to become a dancer, it would require dropping everything, risking everything, and plunging in. I wasn’t about to do that, since I expected zero chance of success!
But you urged a would-be writer to write a little before or after work, not to quit his job to write the Great American Novel. I began to formulate a plan.
I would go back to school and take computer classes — and dance classes ‘on the side.’ So I did. The computer classes were lots of fun, and the dance classes were life saving. I started with jazz and modern dance, then began studying ballet. I found that, as I had suspected, I seem to have some talent. At first, this only increased my pain as I realized that maybe I really could have been a ballerina. I was grieving the life I never had. I had never felt so much pleasure and so much anguish over the same thing. But as time goes on, the pain has become much less and the joy of dancing has filled my life. This is a miracle!
Now I am 43, and I have been dancing for 2 years. I call myself a dancer because that’s who I am, even though I don’t do it for a living. The fact that I am finally actually dancing has broken the bitter spell and free me to enjoy my new field, computer network administration.
My plan was to hedge my bets — study computers and dance, and hope one of the other would work out. Instead, I have both!!
Thank you for inviting me to tell my story. And a ***million*** thanks for writing that wonderful book which changed my life!
Best regards,
Kathy Moon
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