Every night when I lie in bed, waiting for sleep to take me elsewhere, I think of at least two topics I’d like to write about. Most nights I don’t bother finding my way out from under the duvet to reach out for my phone and make notes. Here’s a list of topics I have managed to jot down:

Why doesn’t cleaning up feel productive?
What to do with toiletry products you don’t use?

Yeah, two. There are about a dozen more topics flying around in my head (when off the computer) but I’ve only managed to scribble down two of them. Maybe one of my resolutions should have been write down all potential writing topics that fly through your head. It’s way easier than making sure I stay physical and take care of my body.

Despite the aches, pains, injuries, and other chronic problems, I do love my body. If I’m honest with myself, I wish I could go back in time and make my parents force me to continue ballet. I love dancing. I don’t think there is any physical activity I prefer to dancing (sex not included) and I do wish I had immersed myself into it while much younger. Every time I have participated in any sort of dance lesson, I have always been asked by the teacher if I have done it before. No, I’d never tried belly dancing before, and no, I’ve never taken jazz, salsa, modern dance, or pole lessons before. It’s just that I love to dance, and I suppose that shows. I don’t think I am a great dancer, but I do think that a lot of dancing has to do with how you feel when you are moving. And when I move to any sort of a beat, my heart sings.

I’ve noticed that as I grow older the flow of movement isn’t the same anymore. I used to be able to dance to anything and everything. These days I feel like I am always doing the same movements, restricted by my learned patterns of movement. I don’t like it.

When I see myself in the massive mirror that covers half of the room where I do Zumba lessons with my mother on Saturday mornings, I don’t like the way the person that is staring back at me moves. She is stuck, trying too hard, limited in her movement and flow. My solution? Dance without a mirror at home.

I pop on whatever music happens to catch my eye and then just dance around. I find myself trying to catch a glimpse of me in the reflection of the window or the oven door, but luckily none of it is quite clear enough to give me proper visual feedback on how I am moving.

Moving isn’t about how you look. It’s about how you feel inside. Moving is about celebrating loving your own body… dancing is making love to yourself, to the body you inhabit, the life that is yours, the vessel that makes it possible for you to be in the here and now. Dancing, for me, is as holy as holy can get.

So, you might ask, why am I not a dancer?
It’s because most of my time is spent in my head… dancing makes me happy, yet my mind is always switched on, busy doing things in its own sphere, busy thinking, busy busying itself. So busy busying itself in fact, that it forgets to make time to do the the simple things that fill me with joy. So my body aches, I have to get up, move around, stretch, bend, and then I see the music, put on the stereo and dance. Dance to my heart’s content.

When my mind forgets what makes me happy, my body reminds me.
I do love my body.
Oh so much.