It was the fall of 2006 - I was 29 years old and I had run away from home after a horrible fight with my family, I ran away from a nasty break up, I ran away from the nagging depression of losing my entire family over night, I ran from a few devastating financial blows and I ran from a general feeling of emptiness.
I ran away to Morgantown, West Virginia from the beach coast of Florida. I ran away to go to school. I was a student at West Virginia University. Big college! Finally, at the age of 29!
The thrill of change kept me afloat at first. I had to settle in to my apartment, figure out where the grocery store was, find my classes - these things were distracting so I relished in them.
Once the initial excitement was over I needed more distraction from the nagging depression that lingered in my gut. I needed a job, so I applied at the WVU Recreation (Rec) Center to teach fitness classes. I was hired teaching 9 classes a week of toning, cycling, a few other formats and...Zumba.
School started. I began teaching the fitness classes. The distraction of newness was waning.
I was struggling to make it from day to day.
I recall the paralyzing loneliness that hit me one evening while I was alone in my new apartment. It hit me that, if I disappeared in a ditch or over a bridge it would be weeks before anyone noticed I was missing. This was the truth at that time in my life. My family didn't know where I was; I had alienated myself from my friends in Florida; I was single; I hadn't made any friends up here in this new home yet; the semester was just starting, no one would have noticed if I wasn't in class, figuring I perhaps transferred or quit; I was only starting to teach fitness classes, if I didn't show up they would assume I was just a flake. This sobering reality hit me square between the eyes, I had never been so lonely in all my life.
I felt broken. But I managed to follow the daily routine of going to school and teaching fitness classes. Every second of the day was a challenge.
What I'm about to say, I don't say lightly. It is hard for me to put this into print. But the reality is that the idea of ending my life did occur to me a number of times. I was so angry at my family, I was so hurt and so lonely that it seemed like a fantastic revenge for the hurt they had caused me. At the time I hadn't realized that I had caused most of the problem myself, it took a couple of years of therapy to come to that realization!
I recall teaching Zumba in the evenings twice a week. I would drag myself into the Rec. Center after a long day, with a fake smile on my face and start the walk down the hallway towards the fitness room where I taught class. Negative, self-defeating thoughts running through my head, my heart heavy with sorrow. Since no one had heard of Zumba here the classes were small with only a few students in attendance.
I remember the first day things began to change. I approached the glass doors to the room, my head hung low, gathering myself to fake my smile as I walked in the room to teach. I stopped at the glass door and peered in... I saw familiar faces in the room awaiting my arrival. The same people were coming back for class, this meant that they liked my class, and how I taught it! As I approached the door a few students were sitting on the floor in the middle of the room, they looked up at me and smiled! They were excited that I was there. They were happy to see me. ME! They would have noticed if I hadn't shown up to class!
It's amazing how much can go through the human mind in the blink of an eye. In that split second I decided that, if these girls had made the effort to come back to take MY class, then I had to give them the very best class I possibly could to show how much I appreciated them. But it was more than appreciation. It was a high. I was high on the hope that those girls smiles gave me. It was a glimmer of what life used to be like, and could be again. The possibility of joy. I NEEDED them. I needed their approval. I needed their smiles. I needed them to like me and my classes and to notice me. So I needed to make them love my class so they would keep coming back. I was like a junkie for this new found possibility.
So I left all my sadness, despair and hurt outside the door when I went in to teach Zumba and I taught the very best class that I could teach every single time. I started to look forward to teaching Zumba, it was what got me through each day. My new distraction was in learning new songs for class.
Each week my classes grew larger and larger. I experienced so much joy teaching Zumba that I stopped teaching any other format. I wanted all my energy to go to Zumba and the students who were coming to my class.
A Zumba participant told me about the Counseling that was free to WVU students. I started going to weekly therapy to deal with my depression. Another Zumba student invited me to go to church with her, where I found great comfort and help in overcoming some of my obstacles. I became friends with many of the class participants. Friends who would notice if I wasn’t around. Friends who made me laugh. Friends who brought me great joy.
I was open about my journey, sharing with the class the great discoveries I'd made in therapy that week. My openness motivated some of my participants to seek counseling to help them with their 'speed bumps' (as I like to refer to my issues). One girl told me that when I first discussed my weekly therapy she was shocked. The happy, smiley girl teaching the class, the girl who seems to have everything together is in THERAPY??? All of a sudden her view of therapy changed. It was no longer something for weak people, it was for anyone who needs a little help overcoming a 'speed bump.' She started going to counseling herself.
Other class participants, most of them college aged girls, were opening up to me about how Zumba and my classes helped them with their body image, they were embracing themselves just as they were and celebrating the movement of their bodies. Girls were expressing how Zumba helped them with the stress of school, the stress of boys, and became a sort of therapy all by itself.
Classes continued to grow. We outgrew the first studio and were relocated to the large studio down stairs. We outgrew that one and were relocated to the basketball courts where they placed a stage so that participants in the back could see. We averaged 250 participants in a class.
I continued to share my journey out of depression with my classes by telling them of little triumphs I had experienced. I was as open as a book. In return my classes were open with me. They continued to share stories of how Zumba, and me, and the stories I shared with them was making a difference in their lives.
In June of 2008 I was graduating from WVU and moving back to Florida. We planned a huge going away Zumba class for my last class there. The faces of the people who had supported my classes these past semesters were all there to support me one last time. I stopped mid class and got on the microphone. Fighting back tears I told the class, my 'students,' what they had done for me...
"You all think that I come in to class and that I lift YOU up with MY energy. You're wrong." I said. "When I moved to Morgantown a little less than 2 years ago I was so sad that I didn't think I wanted to go on! It was YOU. Your smiles, your support, your energy that kept me going from day to day. Each class I teach, when you think I'M full of energy that YOU'RE feeding off, it is actually I that am feeding off YOU! You give me so much joy, you light up my life so much that I am only mirroring what I see when I look out at each of you. So remember that perspective is everything. I am a happier, better and healthier person because of each one of YOU! Thank YOU for being in my classes these past 2 years. You saved my life!"
What happened at WVU those 4 semesters was nothing short of a miracle. I was so broken, but it was that brokenness that made me vulnerable. And it was that vulnerability that allowed me to connect with so many, that moved me to open up from my heart and my soul in such a way that it helped others. Had I arrived at WVU my usual confident and joyful self I don't believe it would have been as magical.
From all that hurt and all that sadness came the most beautiful time of my life, thus far.
I have since moved back to Morgantown, WV. It seems that my heart is here, I left it here on a stage in front of a class of Zumba participants who, unknowingly, saved my life. And to those of you who came to one of my classes at WVU during that time, thank you! Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.
