It seems funny that I posted this just a few days ago…

…10 years ago, my dance teacher called me to tell me she had made a difficult decision. After 12 years, she was closing her dance studio – the place I’d learn to breathe and move, my home away from home, my first teaching position, my everything. I felt as though the air had been sucked out of me.

And then she asked me a question that would forever change my life:

“Would you want to take over for me?”

Barely 21 years old, fresh-faced and naive, full of love for the dance world, I said YES in a heartbeat. She mentored me through the change and helped me make the transition from dancer to artistic director.

Then, not-quite-24, starving (literally and figuratively), beaten by the ballet world I was co-existing in, I left that dream behind. I gave it all I could at the time, and I checked “owning a dance studio” off my bucket list at a young age. I gave up my baby to the dust of history, and I moved on in the world.

Or so I thought.

Every chance to dance, I take. Within weeks of my decision, I was teaching at a new studio in the city. I was auditioning for the Edmonton Rush dance team. Who was I kidding? I may have left Thorsby. I may have left the Edmonton School of Ballet.

But I never left dance.

Even when I stopped teaching for a year, I longed for it without knowing.

This year changed everything for me. I got that itch back, and I was SO excited for the extra classes I’d planned to teach this fall. I was flying high!

…

And then yesterday, I got a call…10 years to the month after the first one. The studio owner, my friend, saying that she had made a difficult decision to close her studio…my heart sank. But then, almost word-for-word, deja vu:

“Would you want to take over for me?”

All of a sudden, I was 21 years old again. My dream had been handed back to me again, but this time with a generous helping of age, experience, and maturity. The flame had already been rekindled. The stars were lined up.

I crunched numbers throughout the day. I wrote lists, I rationalized, I pro’d and I con’d. I hyperventilated, and I talked to my husband. I talked to friends. I texted my dearest Miss Krista to see if she’d be able to teach one night a week for me… And through it all, I knew.

I knew that my answer, in my heart of hearts, was YES.

Because I can run and I can hide, but I can’t say no to dance. I can’t quit it. It owns me, and it will until the day that I die.

And with that, I am happy (and a bit terrified!!) to announce the re-birth of Expressions Dance Studio in Onoway, AB, this fall!

In a little bit, you can find my little studio over at www.expressionsdancestudio.ca, and you can always ‘like’ Expressions Dance Studio on Facebook!!

SURPRISE!!