Being a dancer must be hard, especially if you are a ballet dancer. It is a mix of a high-demand sport and a complicated art. You push your body to its limit, strength-wise, and overwork it until it's extremely wet with sweat. But you are also making sure that everything looks perfect and beautiful all the time, every pose at the perfect angle, while showing the most brilliant smile, even through the pain. It doesn't matter how many years you danced; if you did it at least once, you know that it is not as simple and effortless as it looks. It's very demanding and not particularly appreciated.
I was a dancer for a couple of years, not particularly a good dancer, but I still put in the work, practiced every day, and stayed after class correcting my mistakes. That is the minimum in any dance studio. As I said, I wasn't particularly good; it was really hard for me to remember dances as my muscle memory is trash. The dance poses in ballet were complicated; I am not very elastic, and sometimes I was really tired and didn't want to go to rehearsal. I never thought of becoming a competitive dancer or a ballerina, but I still liked what dance made me feel. It was the moment in the day when nothing else mattered; I didn't care what had happened at school or what my future would be like. The only thing I cared about was that moment when the music and I became one thing.
I left dance classes years ago; it didn't fit into my schedule anymore. But I still miss it a lot. I don't have a frustrated dream of becoming a ballerina or anything. But I do miss leaving everything behind for a few hours and only concentrating on the music and my body. The corporal strength dance provided me is something completely unachievable with any other sport. It had so many benefits, not only physically but also mentally. I miss it very much, and I deeply hope that I could restart those dance classes soon.