Always at the beginning

I keep thinking I need to be ready before I start things.

I’m not ready.
But I’m here anyway.

Pole dancing kind of walked into my life sideways. I thought it would just be a workout. Or something fun. Or a phase I’d flirt with and then move on from.

Instead it’s… something else.

I’m obsessed with it.

Not in a normal way. In a something in my nervous system recognises this kind of way.

It wakes something up in me.

Aphrodite.
Freya.
The old magick that feels like it runs quietly through my family line — the women who survived, adapted, held beauty and strength and softness at the same time.

When I dance, that part of me feels alive.

And I’m still bad at it.

I forget what comes next. My timing is off. Sometimes I feel awkward enough that I have to laugh at myself mid-routine.

But I keep going back.

Not because I’m good.
Not because I feel graceful.
Not because I feel confident.

Because something ancient in me wants to move.

And because after class, something in me changes.

My shoulders drop.
My jaw unclenches.
My thoughts go quiet.

It’s like my body exhales. Like I step back into myself.

It feels like remembering.

I want to feel more fluid. More embodied. More capable. More at home in myself. I also think I’m terrible at it right now — and somehow both of those things get to be true at the same time.

So this isn’t me starting because I’m ready.

It’s me starting because I’m not.

Because something in me is waking up.
And I don’t want to put it back to sleep.