Dance like no one is watching...

Since watching Natalie Portman pirouetting magnificently across the stage, as her character Nina transforms into the Black Swan (in what was one of the most mesmorising, breathtaking cinematic experiences I've ever had), I've not been able to shake the image from my mind.

Not that it's a bad thing - like I said, it was one of the most incredible scenes I've ever watched in a movie - but it's got me thinking about how much fun I had as a ballerina when I was a young girl. I started ballet dancing at the age of four and gave it up 10 years later at the age of 14 because I was just, like, sooo over it. Plus it wasn't cool - or so I was made to believe.

"What are you doing after school today?"
"Oh I've got dancing this afternoon.."
"Aw yeah? And what is it this time, ballet, tap or acro-gymnastics??" - cue 10 minutes of sniggering at my expense while I sat in uncomfortable silence trying to think of ways to defend myself before deciding it simply wasn't worth it.

I started to convince myself that dancing was "crap" and "uncool" and I told my mother that under no uncertain circumstances did I want to do it any longer. Of course she asked me why and my reply? "Because I just don't want to! Ok!" Such an original response for a teenager with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

So I started being quite rude to my dance teacher - a woman I'd known for 10 years, longer than I'd known most of my friends at the time - and just hoped that she would have enough of me and tell me to sling my hook. But of course she didn't, she recognised it straight away - the rebellion, the acting out, the whole I'm-too-cool persona. It didn't wash with her. She just ignored it. So one day, after countless jibes from my "friends" (let's use that term loosely shall we) I marched up to the dance hall and told her that I wasn't paying my fees for this month because I wasn't a part of her dance school anymore. Thank you very much, good bye.

Needless to say, the very next day I was back, sobbing my eyes out and apologising for being such a little madam, that I didn't really want to stop dancing, I was just sick of everyone making me feel like a baby for doing it. And she told me I was more of a baby for reacting to it. Which was very true. Thankfully she welcomed me back in with open arms, but even after that I only lasted about another six months because by that point I really had started to lose my enjoyment of an activity that used to make me sublimely happy.

When I started studying for my exams at school I was glad I didn't have the added 'stress' of dancing on top of everything else. When I went to university at 17 I was delighted I didn't have the 'inconvenience' of dance classes which would undoubtedly have gotten in the way of valuable socialising time with my new boyfriend and friends at the student's union. Oh my life was so much better without it.

It was only when I got to about 20 that I realised how much of a void I had created by giving up my dance classes. I genuinely missed it - from the banter in class, to the exercise, to the discipline of it all - and for the first time in a long time, I wished I had never given it up.

Of course I never got round to getting back into it and I probably never will because that ship has well and truly sailed, but I'll always regret not giving it another shot. When I was little I had these ideas in my head that one day I would get to leap across the stage in true prima ballerina style and have an audience rise to their feet and applaud me when I finished dancing. I dreamt that someone would throw pink and white roses onto the stage around my feet.

Alas that never happened - not that I think I was ever going to have the body for it but you never know. And although I am very much a skinny jeans and converse kind of girl, there are times when I'll let my inner ballerina loose and try to embrace her as much as I can. My favourite outfit at the moment is a pale pink ballerina skirt with a black ribbon around the waist, a black cotton scooped low back leotardand a silk baggy sleeved blouse which nips in at the waist with three tiny gold buttons, teamed with opaque black tights and pale pink ballet pumps - minus the ribbon because my legs are stubby enough as it is without shortening them even more. And there's so much vintage inspired, dreamy, wistful jewellery out just now that I fear I may drown myself in ballerina princess overhaul.

Maybe it's a good thing I gave it up - perhaps I wouldn't quite appreciate it as much today if I had kept on going. You just don't know what you've got till it's gone.