Meg is a geM

Last night I went tangoing for the second night in a row (am considering going again tonight). I'd worked a 12-hour day and gone straight to Barry's to dance with two older, distringuished tangueros who were kind enough to dance with an amateur like me (it helped that I was the only female who showed up to Tuesday tango night). As I drove home last night, I wondered why I was spending my time dancing when there were so many other things I should be doing. I have goals I'll never reach if I don't start getting organized and apply myself and there are people I neglect to feed my dance habit. I thought about it, and this week I'll spend five nights out of seven out dancing. Why am I doing it?
For one thing, the exercise is great. It's the only workout I enjoy and as my appetite shrinks and my legs grow strong, I feel my waistline veeeeeeery slowly diminish. But there's a better reason: four years ago in Buenos Aires, I tried to tango and after a horribly failed practica, I swore it off for life. I just knew I couldn't do it and uncharacteristically took it off the table forever, or so I thought. Now that patient instructors and kind male partners have taught me that I can be an acceptable tanguera, I feel immensely empowered. It is the first time in a very long time that I believe that we can do the impossible if we try. That, as cheesy as this line is, we truly do miss 100% of the shots we don't take.
Now that the lessons and practicas aren't a huge struggle, just a matter of polishing and improving, I feel ready to use this as a springboard toward accomplishing other things I've been putting off out of laziness and hopelessness.

Thanks for indulging yet another selfish post—I hope that someone might read this and feel encouraged to try something unfamiliar and uncomfortable and overcome his/her own fears. It's a wonderful thing to discover you have more in you than you thought.