Letting go

This has been my year of living by those words

Learning to let go in tango, of tango, and thanks to tango.

Words to live and dance by: an occasional series

My life as I knew it blew up a little more than a year ago. If you know me or you follow me, you might already know that. How it happened is not such a unique story; it’s kind of a clichéd one, actually. But it led to me having to let go of a lot all at once, from my most significant and long-term romantic relationship to my professional identity and a lot of other things along the way. Letting go can be really, really hard. But it can also be a process that teaches us valuable life lessons, ones that can also be carried over into our tango lives. And then tango turns around and helps us along right back.

A little over a year ago, my 21-year life-parenting-tango-business partnership ended. It was a brutal breakup. I found out my partner had been seeing someone behind my back for months, someone I knew well and was friendly with. Details about who this person was as well as the way I found out made the discovery all the more devastating. (I will not share those specifics, to protect some of the people involved.)

As I said, the story is not an original one. It has been lived and told many times before: The kids have grown up, the woman has hit middle age, the man takes up with someone half her age. But just because it has happened to others doesn’t make it less hurtful or challenging to go through.

In fact, letting go of the relationship itself was in some ways the easy part. Things had been deteriorating and feeling “off” for months. Also, I had known for years that we weren’t compatible in some ways that deeply mattered to me: I felt he didn’t value our individual identities but only those of us as a couple; we don’t share the same sense of humour; I had seen signs of dishonesty over the years that had always made me uncomfortable. But we were great partners in so many ways: We valued family time, vacationed well together, loved tango and were excellent teaching partners. All that to say, the moment we split (the very day I discovered the infidelity), even in the midst of my anguish and rage, I knew I would come out happier on the other side of it. And right away it was nice to have my space back, both figuratively and physically. I relished having my bed to myself, fewer clothes and dishes to wash, one less person to clean up after, a bunch of annoying habits no longer to have to ignore or deal with. But saying goodbye to my relationship was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the things I have had to relinquish as a consequence.

My sense of reality

What was really tough was letting go of a partnership that I thought had been built on love and respect, letting go of what I thought the relationship had been. I had doubted things about him over the two decades we were together, but I had truly never doubted that he loved me. He was extremely affectionate and said the three little words so regularly I sometimes faulted him for it.

Over the years I, too, felt a couple of attractions. But I never acted on them and knew I never would, out of love but even more than that, out of respect. It would have felt like such a betrayal of trust, and such a waste to throw away years of love and work for something fleeting. I always assumed he felt the same way. I knew he had flirted too hard a handful of times, but as tango teachers who are literally in the arms of other people every single day, a little attraction, a little flirtation is just about inevitable. As long as it doesn’t get inappropriate or leave the dance floor, it kind of goes with the territory, right? That’s what I always thought. But after the breakup, women started coming forward and telling me stories that were shocking to me. Even more shocking was the realization that I had not seen the behaviours. Who was he? And who was I? I thought I was experienced, aware, street-wise, not easily duped or manipulated. I thought.

Faced with new knowledge, I looked back and remembered other little lies I had either believed, chosen to believe or buried over the years. So I found myself having to let go of my sense of reality and in some ways my sense of self. I’ve come to terms with it, but when I really think about it, it’s still jarring to realize how little we can know ourselves and those close to us.

My business

One of the biggest and most difficult parts of the split was the professional breakup. In the end I decided to sell my half of our school to my ex. Financially, running it has always been a struggle, and I had always taken care of almost all the admin work, so I was constantly exhausted and overwhelmed, with little to show for it – aside from the fact that I truly love what I do, from dancing to teaching to building community. But money was always tight, the rent, bills and expenses were always due, and I wasn’t willing to continue living that constant stress while carrying the heavy administrative workload, either alone or with the partner who had so deeply betrayed me.

I decided that I can still do the things I really love – dance and teach – without the financial burden of the school and the time burden of all that admin work. And he wanted to make a go of keeping the school. So I sold, for a pittance and the promise I can still teach in the space for as long as I want.

The agonizing decision took months to make, months filled with questions and consultations – and an awful lot of tears. Now that it’s done, I feel it was the right choice for me, but that doesn’t make it less heartbreaking. And I have not as yet been able to walk away fully; I’m so attached to my students and my community, and to teaching in the space I built and maintained with my body and soul for almost two decades. I’ve liberated myself of some heavy work and responsibility, but I have a ways to go before I can truly say I’ve let the business go.

My professional identity

So I don’t own the school anymore, which has lightened my load considerably, but I also have lost a sense of who I am professionally. Of course I’m still a dancer, and a DJ, and a teacher of both tango and yoga, but I’m no longer a studio owner, an organizer, a community leader. And my days as a teacher at the school formerly known as mine are probably numbered. As I said, it’s nice to still be there among my people, my students, and to have access to the teaching space, but it’s also weird to be there and not be in charge, to keep letting go, every day, every week, of little things I want to take care of but shouldn’t, can’t, won’t. So I have had to let go of my professional identity while I slowly figure out how to build a new one.

My professional partnership

Knowing what you know now, you might feel amazed that we can still work together as amicably as we do. It’s true, we do, and I had to let go of (or bury, if I’m being honest) a lot of rage and resentment to make it possible, but with a very few exceptions, we stopped dancing, performing and teaching together immediately, and that pretty much holds to this day.

So, overnight, after 21 years of having a dedicated dance and teaching partner, I became not just a single woman, but a solo tango dancer. A female, middle-aged, solo tango dancer whose career has been largely local. I am comfortable teaching alone and really enjoy doing so, and I get hired for DJ gigs and some solo teaching gigs, but for the first time in two decades I have no school behind me and no partner by my side. I don’t have a go-to person to plan classes with or to practise or perform with.

I’m glad to say I’ve had a lot of fun socially since I shed my half-of-a-whole identity. I think my dancing has actually improved in some ways – my leading certainly has – and I feel more free to be fully me, but life as a tango professional is very different as a solo artist than as part of an established couple. So it has been a liberating experience, but also a scary one. I’m liking my new identity, but I’m still learning how to fully live it as well as how to present it to the world.

My plan for the future

This is not the first time I’ve reinvented myself. Soon after I got pregnant with my firstborn, I knew I was going to be a single mother and though I had no real idea what all that would entail, I knew where I was going. When I left my journalism career 18 years ago to open a tango school, it felt reckless, like we were jumping out of a plane without a parachute, but we did have a plan. This time, I don’t really. I have skillsets: teaching dance and yoga, DJing tango events, writing, but I’m not sure how those fit together to make me a living or what the balance should be; what I should be devoting more time to. Tango has been my all-consuming bread and butter for so long it’s what I spend my energy on by default, reaching out for new gigs, promoting my classes and events non-stop on social media. But I am also determined to devote more time to writing, trying hard to post an article a week and to plan myself a book-writing retreat within the next year. I also want to keep upping my game as a yoga teacher, strengthening my physical practice while delving deeper into aspects like chanting, breath work, history and spirituality. The ability to let go of the plan is an important quality for tango dancers, as I mention below. So I am working on living in the present and not worrying too much about my plan.

My youth

All of this came as I was in the throes of menopause. Many women I know seem relieved to have gone through it, saying goodbye to monthly hormonal fluctuations and all the fun stuff that goes with them. But I was not ready. My PMS had been horrible since my 40s, worse than anyone I know, yet I never looked forward to saying goodbye to the regular reminder that I was still fertile, therefore still holding on to a piece of my younger self. The process of letting go of youth has been taking an emotional toll on me for years. I loved being young and carefree, and the world of dance is not the friendliest to an aging body. And the older I get, the harder it gets. Parting with smoothness, firmness, fresh-faced beauty, and, consequently, visibility has been a struggle for me every step of the way. I see, appreciate and believe in the beauty in other women as they age, but every day I look in the mirror and have a lot of trouble seeing past my lines, my softening skin, my graying hair. Then there’s the joint pain, hot flashes and insomnia. All of which I’m addressing, investigating and learning to live with. But oh is it hard to continually say farewell to my younger self. Just when I’ve learned to accept, even embrace, one change, the next one comes along.

How tango helps

My life has been so wrapped up in tango for so long it’s impossible to disentangle the two. So while the dance, specifically my dancing career, has made this whole story extra complicated, it has also helped me get through it. Dancing in general, and tango in particular, has always been the tool that helps me mentally let go the most. It allows me to abandon my thoughts and worries and to live fully in the moment. I have an overly busy brain that is hard to turn off – the kind that loves to wake me up at 3 a.m. or distract me from the task at hand – and tango is one of the only activities that is pretty much guaranteed to still my mind and make me truly, completely present. Yoga also accompanies me along this path, and meditation attracts me for the same reasons, though the work there is more challenging without the music, movement and human contact to help.

Letting go in tango

Being a good tango dancer and partner involves letting go on many levels, for leaders and followers.

The plan

This is a big one for those who lead. A skilled leader always has a plan, but knows how to adapt to unexpected situations and change that plan at just about any moment. Sometimes the dance floor is overcrowded; sometimes it is downright chaotic. That is the reality of tango, and if you can’t accept that a huge part of dancing an improvised dance is reacting and adapting to the unexpected, it will be hard to have fun. In every partnership, mistakes will be made by both parties, and the more you can accept that, the more you will enjoy your tango-dancing experience. Finding creative ways to get out of sticky situations can even be a fun challenge. I’m sure half of the new moves that are invented happen by accident, and as a follower, a good portion of my adornos come about while I’m trying to disguise a misstep.

Mistakes

For both dancers, it’s important to remember that once a mistake has been made, it’s in the past. Holding on to that mistake by blaming your partner and trying to fix them, or by obsessing over what you did wrong is, simply, pointless. Personally, I find one of the best methods of letting go of mistakes is to laugh them off: Finding the humour in a situation can be a great way to avoid frustration.

The ego

Everyone has an ego, and it is one of the biggest learning inhibitors. When I say “ego,” I’m not talking about massive arrogance or conceit, though of course it’s out there, too. I mean the self-image we all possess, which so easily blocks the learning process by creating a fear of failure or inadequacy, and resisting change, acting as a defensive shield that puts self-importance above receptivity and growth. Especially as adults, it’s hard to admit you don’t know things about your own body, so it’s easy to get defensive when an instructor points things out that you didn’t know you were doing wrong. If you can notice that tendency and let go of it, bringing a bit of humility to the forefront, you will likely learn more as a student and listen more as a dancer.

A bad milonga experience

It’s inevitable, sometimes you will not have the exact night you were looking forward to, but if you are open to what comes, you can still have a great time. Didn’t dance as many tandas as you hoped? Well, maybe tonight was more about enjoying the vibe than filling your dance card. Didn’t catch a cabeceo from the person you most wanted to tango with? Maybe you made someone else’s night when they caught yours. Crappy evenings often boil down to ones that didn’t live up to your expectations, so when things aren’t going as you hoped, try to let go of what you were waiting for and take what comes instead: a dance with a friend rather than the star you had your eye on; a nice compliment from the person next to you while you both sat out the tanda by your favourite orchestra; the opportunity to chat, rest your feet and go home less tired than usual. And the list goes on.

If living in the present moment and going with the flow are concepts you already live by, that part of tango may come to you with relative ease, as it did for me back when I started. But if letting go and taking things in stride are difficult for you, perhaps they will be among the life lessons tango teaches you. The repetition of those lessons through both tango and my yoga practice have certainly helped me through a most challenging year.

More in the “Words to live and dance by” series: