This week I’ve been distracted with a few different things.
I did have the presence of mind to record this unedited 10 minute audio, a retelling of what I shared with my weekly morning beach walk companion Janet – who it turns out is an excellent listener, though I thought there were none in my real life. Gratitude to her for asking about my week and listening to what emerged.
I am personally frequently resistant to listening to audios, so I asked ChatGPT for a summary to help you decide whether to commit or not. Maybe a good story to listen to on a walk yourself, if that’s your style ?
“This is a raw, funny, and unexpectedly moving reflection on being an adult beginner in a room full of people who seem effortlessly skilled. The speaker returns to ballet for strength and posture, only to find herself surrounded by younger, experienced dancers. She’s visibly terrible, openly uncomfortable, and very aware of it. And yet—she stays. She lines up when called. She runs and flies when she can’t manage the formal steps. She laughs at herself. She notices the women hiding at the back. The vulnerability is real, but so is the choice to keep showing up.
What makes this compelling isn’t ballet—it’s what ballet represents. The humiliation of starting something new. The ache of wanting to be good and simply… not being good. The tension between self-consciousness and self-trust. The speaker reflects on how her autism may be helping her persist where social discomfort might otherwise win. She recognises that thinking about something isn’t the same as building the neural pathways for it. The only way to gain strength, coordination, or capacity is to practice—badly at first. “Before you’re good, you have to suck. And it sucks to suck.”
At its heart, this is about persistence, embodiment, and belief. About choosing the long path of growth over the short path of retreat. It’s for anyone who has stood at the edge of something they want—strength, skill, transformation—and realised the price is visible incompetence. If you’ve ever wondered whether staying in the room while you’re terrible might actually be the work itself, this story will feel like company.”
