Dancing Through The Pain

Hubby and I have been taking a social ballroom dance class through community education. As you can imagine I was pretty intimidated at the thought of making a weekly commitment to show up and do something, never knowing when my migraines and/or fibromyalgia are going to take me down. Despite my anxiety about signing up, we went ahead and did it. 

Turns out I've been able to manage it fairly well between planning ahead and my rescue medications (plus a little luck). Since it's just one hour, once a week, I've found that even if I'm having a bad day I can load up on my rescue meds and fake it for that one hour if I have to. The day after class is always designated for recuperation. More than a few times I went to class feeling nauseated and in pain, wanting nothing more than to be at home. But, by the end of class I'm always glad I went. 

The great thing about taking this class is that we're learning something new together. When we're there we can only focus on the steps and dancing together. That means all our stresses and crap have take a back seat. Funny how just one hour of laughing and learning together can totally reset things. I almost always leave class with a more positive outlook and feeling like the things stressing me out are suddenly more manageable. Best of all, I feel closer to my hubby. 

With 15 weeks of class behind us and only 1 week left, my feeling are mixed. As much as I've loved learning to dance with my husband and having a weekly micro-vacation from our stressors, the house build is pretty consuming. We don't have much time or energy to practice our steps so it is becoming difficult to remember the new stuff we learn. Plus, the further into class we get the more difficult the steps and the faster the pace. I just don't see how we can keep up. 

The writing is on the wall; dance classes will have to be put on hold until we get moved and settled into our new home. Left to our own devices, hopefully we'll be able to at least retain what we've learned and be ready to start up again when the time is right.