While most ballerinas get their start at the age of three, I was 11 when I began taking formal lessons at Southold Dance Theater. Dance hasn’t left my life since. There have been summer intensives and a 200-hour yoga certification program. I’ve spent countless hours teaching at the top ballet school in New York and at YMCA recreational classes. Now, several years into a professional nonprofit career (where I still teach ballet and yoga on the side), I hold on to the life lessons that dance has taught me: dedication, hard work, time management. I see dance in everything: how someone walks down the street or interacts with someone they hardly know. How a person moves when they are anxious or how the body reacts when it gently cradles a baby. It is never too late to start moving and dancing. You’re not too old. You’re not the wrong size, shape or color. You’re not too out-of-shape. You are beautiful and ready to dance just as you are.