Learning to Follow the Lead

Ballroom dance has quietly grown on me.

Somewhere between hesitant steps and counting beats, without me realizing, dance shifted from something we were trying… into something I genuinely look forward to. Our lessons have become a rhythm of their own—one that sits alongside everything else we’re trying to hold together.

Lately, that balance has been harder to find.

Dance pulls us toward Ottawa. The boat preparation for the trip pulls us toward Kingston. And I often feel like I’m standing in the middle, being asked to choose between two parts of a life that both matter deeply to me. 

With gas prices still high, travel feels heavier than usual, we’ve had to adjust. Tom makes solo trips to the boat, allowing him to be staying overnight reducing back and forth trips, while we’ve condensed our dance lessons into back-to-back sessions instead of spreading them out through the week.

It’s not perfect. But neither are we. And somehow, we are making it work.

What’s surprised me most is how much dance has given back to me, not just to Tom or to us as a couple. My body feels stronger. Holding my frame has built strength in my upper body, and my legs now carry me through an hour and a half of movement I never would have managed before. B y the time we’re driving home, I’m completely spent—but it’s the good kind of exhaustion. The kind that comes from effort, from progress, from showing up fully.

As our lessons become more advanced, they also become more challenging in new ways. Some days, Tom remembers the steps with ease. Other days, they slip just out of reach. I’ve learned that both kinds of days are part of the dance.

Our “dance momma” sees it too. She knows when to gently adjust, when to simplify, and when to just let us move through it. Recently, we’ve added a second instructor into the mix, someone who brings this whole experience even closer to home.

Our youngest daughter.

There’s something incredibly special about our secondary instructor. Our daughter once taught our secondary teacher’s parents, then taught him, and now, in a way, she’s teaching us all over again—through her own student. Her dance “baby” now guides us through some of our lessons.  It’s a strange and beautiful dynamic.

During group lessons, we are lucky to have our daughter teach most of them.  We try to stay professional, but there’s always that small moment of laughter when she calls us by our first names, it feels strange. Eventually, she just tells the class we’re her parents—which, apparently, gives her permission to pick on us a little more, and can call us Momma & Poppa again, which feels just right.

And honestly, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Sharing this part of our lives with her has brought a kind of closeness I didn’t expect. When your children are grown, time together shifts. It becomes more intentional, more precious. Dance has given us a space to be part of her world again, not just as parents, but as participants.  It’s a beautiful thing!

At the same time, Tom and I are finding a new rhythm with each other.

He leads . I’ve learned to follow.

And for the first time in a very long time, following feels natural again. The more confident he becomes in his steps, the easier it is for me to trust them. That trust doesn’t stay on the dance floor; it’s started to find its way into our everyday life too.

Tom’s quality of life has improved so much. Not just because of dance, but because of the work he continues to put into his healing journey. There are still a lot of hard days, but there is also progress, and presence, and something that feels a lot like hope. 

I used to wish for the version of him from before PTSD. But life doesn’t move backward like that. This is the life we have—and somewhere along our adventures, I realized I’ve become happy again.

We’re now confidently working through our social dance curriculum, though I’m not entirely sure how close we are to finishing it. Our dance momma has already started introducing bronze-level steps, and with that comes a sense that things are becoming more complete.

At home, practice feels different now too. We can move around our small space without bumping into everything, and for the first time, we can dance through an entire song without feeling stuck in a basic box step.

Tom still mixes foxtrot into tango, or tango into foxtrot; but I’ve learned to go with it. There’s something freeing in that. We’re even starting to blend dances intentionally, shifting from foxtrot into swing and back again, finding connections between them.  I’m noticing that his once stiff frame has become a little softer.  We are learning to communicate through our frames, and it means that he doesn’t have to have as harsh of a hold to encourage me to move with him. 

It’s less about getting it perfect, and more about staying in motion together.

As we prepare to leave for our trip our East, I find myself wondering what dance will look like on the water. I imagine quiet evenings dancing on shore, or early mornings moving carefully along the docks, the water just beside us, supporting us with its rhythm.

I promised our youngest we would keep dancing through our trip. I plan to send her photos from wherever we practice, little snapshots of movement in new places.  It sounds kind of like a romantic life, dancing and sailing our way out East.

When we first started ballroom dance, the plan was simple: dance until we leave.  Learn the basics so that we can dance the socials at our youngest’s competitions that we attend.

But now… I’m not so sure I want to let it go.

Somewhere between the steps, it has become so much more.  I find myself wondering “Maybe some things aren’t meant to end when we leave—just meant to travel with us through life in one form or another.”