A not quite ballet story

Talking with my dance choreographer recently I was reminded of an incident in my childhood which in someways prevented me from pursuing dance and in others ways positively shaped my life. Though I never really saw the positives till I sat and wrote the story down at my choreographers request. It was a real eye opener to look at the story from my mothers perspective and finally start to see the challenges she faced raising a child with Spina Bifida, and how the seemingly small decisions she made can make all the difference. So by posting this story I am thanking my mom for all of the years of sacrifice that I never really saw her make.

When I was 6 years old their was this other little girl in my grade one class that always wore this pretty and shiny blue dress to school and twirled around like a ballerina. She was in ballet classes and I thought she was so graceful. Dance envy at age 6. So I asked my mom if I could have ballet lessons and I made it clear how badly I wanted them. So my mom looked into ballet classes for me. I remember seeing information sheets on ballet classes in the kitchen. However a few weeks later my mom told me that she really couldn't afford to enroll me in classes and that she was really sorry. I was disappointed and I always remember wishing that we could have afforded ballet classes, because I loved dance, even line dancing and square dancing that we learned in school. In fact in grade five when i was living with my dad I used to go square dancing with one of my friends and her mom. we were the only two little girls there but we always had so much fun.
I learned quite a lot later, maybe when I was 18 or so that the reason that I couldn't get into those ballet classes oh so long ago was that when my mom had approached the instructor about enrolling me in her classes and explained that I had Spina Bifida, and that I sometimes had a slight limp and a few minor issues with muscle control in my right foot but I was an incredibly energetic kid. The instructor told her that she was afraid I would hold up her other students and that she didn't want to adapt her program for a disabled child. I realize now that my mom had probably heard that speech so many times when I was little, and she protected me from knowing that the reasons I wasn't getting into programs I wanted was because teachers were afraid of dealing with my disability. I grew up not even realizing I had a disability for the most part....I was very much aware that we were poor, but besides some very minor differences and quite a lot of school yard bullying which I mostly ignored, I never felt disabled. So while I do regret not being trained in dance (something I am now learning you are never too old for!) I am learning to admire my mothers courage in dealing with peoples prejudices against something they couldn't understand, and how by protecting me from that world as much as she could I never learned the meaning of 'give up' or 'quit" or "you will never be able to be like everyone else, smart, successful etc". In fact I still believe I can do anything I want to do as long as I want it badly enough and I work hard enough and I learn how to adapt my approach to it to match my abilities.