I'm a ballerina at age 62

I'm frequently asked if I am a ballerina.

In jest, sometimes -- I say, yes. And sometimes, I'd say, no, and then I laugh and say, "I am not -- I am just pretending to be one." And they reply, "You're doing a wonderful job of faking it."

It is my pretending led me to practice studio ballet religiously. I began at the age of 59, reasoning that if I waited a little longer, I would be dead.

I've always wanted to be a dancer - free and lovely - since I was growing up in Soviet Russia in the 1960s.

Yet there were more important things to do, like going to a medical school, or growing cucumbers that always needed to be pickled for the long Russian winter, or learning to be a tailor so you could wear something other than a potato sack, and even a potato sack looks better on you if it is tailored.

For many years I accomplished what was expected of me, and then some. I became a physician, even an emergency medicine physician, never complaining.

But, somehow, none of that mattered. It was just getting me to where I wanted to be - to dare becoming something else other than what my motherland society had ordained: a doctor or a collective farmer; nothing different, nothing unique.

Despite being the pragmatic comrade that I was, I've always had one foot in a make-believe world.

Ballet was one of my make-believe dimensions, and becoming an American citizen was another. It appears that both have now been achieved.

Although the American prince that brought me into this dreamland, sadly passed away on December 19, 2010, after eighteen years of our marriage.

I'm afraid he no longer can express his pride in my achievements; I'm sure he would because he was there for me always, no matter what insane thing I was doing with my life.

After ten years as a grieving widow, I discovered Tinder, and let me tell you, being a ballerina on Tinder comes with certain perks.

One day, I put one of my ballet photos on Tinder and instantly had two thousand likes. WHAT? I don't get it. Before that, I had one and a half likes.

I noticed my ballet pictures are the most popular with Tinder men in France. I have over 1,000 likes in Paris. They say “Bonjour, Irina!” on my WhatsApp voicemail, and my mind draws a vivid picture of me sashaying on Champs-Élysées, my lipstick is brightly red, crimson high-heels, and the world is my oyster.

Then, I look at the sink in my kitchen and understand it’s time to do the dishes.

I'm not as popular on Tinder in Miami, where I reside. Miami males are likely to be enthralled by curvy Latina sirens. That's not me. My description would go like this, "She was as flat as a board with no curves to speak of."

Well, what can you do? We must accept what we've got and make the most of our assets. I guess, my distinctive features, in addition to my flatness, are my long legs and even longer arms. So, when I fling my extensions around, I resemble a four-legged spider.

To top it off, I have both an adult and a childhood version of attention deficit disorder (ADD), and being idle is excruciating for me. For example, I must fidget or dance while I wait at the grocery store's checkout line.

I was practicing my pliés at Trader Joe's the other day, and I noticed that one by one, other people standing in line behind me began to copy me. It was a strange line; it didn't resemble Swan Lake or Nutcracker, but rather a multi-generational family that had overindulged at the wine and cheese tasting table and now felt too merry.

I'm used to practicing my ballet in public, and it goes over well in South Florida. People smile and applaud. They even offer me $20 bills. Perhaps they believe I am homeless and that my way of getting through life is performing ballet on the street.

It's not the case. I live in a condo I own and am well-fed. I no longer even need to grow my own cucumbers. My apartment building is a high-rise with its own pool and everything. The people living here are either foreigner who came to Miami with big plans or people who got rich overnight.

I dance on the street simply because I like dancing and everything that goes with it.

I do not care about what people think of me... Oh, wait, that's not true - I want to be loved and admired by everyone. Well, by most people.

If someone would tell me that I would be an American living in Miami and seriously into ballet, at the time when I was a scrawny Russian girl, I would think they were nuts. My mother would think in even stronger terms. She was a teacher and a very strict one like they have only in Russia.

One time, I danced in front of the mirror when I was seven. My mother said I looked like a performing monkey and I should go back to memorize the chapters from "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx.

I adore my mother, but I'd rather have no one telling me what to do. Now I tell myself what to do and tell myself to dance.

My clumsy ballet routines are an excellent answer to a wide range of issues.

I love the way it makes my body look, and pretending is something that I enjoy.

When I'm out and about, I want people to think that I'm a movie star. I'm not, but they don't know it.

One of my favorite things about unprofessional ballet is that physical ability does not really matter. If you dance with your heart and soul - you are good enough. It doesn't matter how flexible or strong or tall or short or skinny or fat you are. You can dance ballet if you love it, and I do.

Another great thing about ballet, it can be danced solo.

In ballroom dancing, for example, you need a partner. A dancing partner, like any other partner in life, is a pain to procure.

At one time, I attended a ballroom dancing class at my local dance studio in Coral Gables. If that was a painful experience because the cost of a lesson package there is roughly equivalent to my monthly mortgage payments.

Fortunately, I had a deal. If I recruited a new student for a free private lesson, my instructor gave me a free private lesson as well.

That one-hour private lesson with my instructor cost the same as a session with a therapist. However, if your dance instructor is like mine, you will be able to release your therapist in no time.

It is so true what my friend Melissa says, “Ballroom is such a pleasure, I am surprised it is still legal.” Melissa, of course, can afford both her therapist and her ballroom teacher.

I'm too poor to afford either, so I'm constantly asking friends and acquaintances to take a free ballroom dance lesson, in the hopes of getting one for free.

Last month, I was introduced to Mr. Greenblatt, a retired Wall Streeter. He said I reminded him of Maya Plisetskaya, whom he met at the Bolshoi, during one of his frequent visits to Moscow in the 1980s.

He brought up the subject of photography, telling me how he had asked Maya if he could photograph her portrait. He was an internationally renowned photographer who exhibited his big blacks and whites everywhere. She nodded, said, "Yes," and stood him up the next day.

With that sad story, Mr. Greenblatt invited me out for lunch, and before we could get together -- he died.

That got me thinking a lot about the future.

When I'm at the barre in the morning, I tell myself, let's do it. Your knees could go bad tomorrow and you'd be lucky to make it from your sofa to the fridge.

And when someone asks me out, I consider it seriously because he might be snatched up by some curvy babe tomorrow or.... even worse... one of us could die.

An earlier version of this story appeared here.