I'm a ballroom dancer

I've been a ballroom dancer for more than 20 years. Ballroom consumes a huge amount of my time and energy (not to mention my money).
My ballroom world is like an alternative universe. I drift in and out of it. I wake up in the middle of the night with songs (always in a good ballroom tempo, of course) in my head.
I cannot explain why it's so important to me. I wonder sometimes if ballroom simply fills up an empty space in my life, or it originates in my lifelong love of music, or if it's the extreme challenge, or...I don't know.
I used to think it was the fantasies associated with dancing with men, but then I got a woman teacher. And ANOTHER woman teacher. There goes that theory.
I ballroom danced in college, married a non-dancer (we're still happily married), and gave up dancing. Then in graduate school I went into a serious depression. I swore that if I survived, I would dance.
And so it happened.
Right now I'm getting ready for a showcase/competition in December. Stage fright (or its more elegant name "performance anxiety") is my big enemy.
I've been listening to a motivational CD every night, and it seems to be helping. The other thing I do every night is listen to each song and try to imagine myself performing.
When I went through this ritual last night, it suddenly hit me that this doesn't have to be a huge deal. Somehow that had never occurred to me before. Maybe it's the result of the CD I've been listening to.
I'm wondering if somehow I put my whole identity on the line with these performances instead of simply getting up, dancing (which is what I want to do anyway), taking a bow, and sitting down.
Hence this blog. I'd like to explore what ballroom dancing means to me, what performing means, and where my dancing is going.