What did I have to complain about? On the surface, not much. I had a full life that would be the envy of many women: two beautiful daughters, a handsome, talented husband, a glamorous and stimulating job as the beauty and health director of a magazine, a nice house in the suburbs of New York City. And low cholesterol.

Certainly, I felt grateful. But something about the juggling act prevented me from feeling good. I was overextended, hyperproductive and increasingly cranky. The absurd pretence of the supermom role was taking its toll. And it didn’t help that I nursed a hostility towards my husband, Peter, because he seemed able to find time for himself, his sports-playing and TV-watching, yet not for the dishes or taking out the rubbish.

I recognised my predicament one Saturday in April 2000 as I witnessed spring burgeoning and a happy family celebrating at a bar mitzvah in our village. As I sat in the synagogue, gazing out of the window, I felt isolated from all the exuberance. “I’m half-dead,” I said to myself. Either that, or sleepwalking. I didn’t feel sorry for myself. This was merely a moment of self-diagnosis. I kept on.

Then, on Valentine’s Day 2001, my life changed. Peter and I usually didn’t do much to observe the occasion, but that year I gave him a racy gift from a sex shop and he told me he’d made reservations for dinner at 7pm — or so I thought. Instead, he surprised me by driving to the new ballroom-dance studio near our house. I hadn’t danced in more than 20 years, not since the 1970s, when I’d been an amateur competitor: passionate, dedicated and racking up my share of gold and silver medals.

From the moment my shoe touched the floor, that was it for me. I was back. The real me. Since that night, I fitted dancing into my schedule somehow — on my work-at-home days, at lunchtime while the kids were at school, at weekends when they were at birthday parties, on the occasional weeknight when Peter could get home early. If time was really short, I simply stopped cleaning the house or buying the groceries. It felt zany and naughty (but necessary) to be doing something just for me — and spending more time in the arms of other men than in my husband’s.

I’ve always been grateful that it was dancing and not a gruesome disease that jump-started me and inspired a new appreciation of life. My cure was as simple as a tango, a rumba and a waltz. Along with the joy I experienced from exercise endorphins — the glory of biochemistry — I came to realise that my frantic sense of duty had scattered my energy all over the place, and now the pieces of my spirit were reconnecting.

Before that Valentine’s Day, I’d resigned myself to three things: once you’ve had children, you can forget about sleep, having time alone and being in shape. This was a time to nurture others, not think about myself. A saggy belly and breasts were badges of courage.

But, as the days passed and I was dancing three, four — six — hours a week, something started to catch my attention. My derrière. It wasn’t where it used to be — it was 2in to the north, I swear. And what was this? I saw quadriceps above my knees — carved quads. Rather smart calves, too, and deltoids, there, at my shoulders. My dress size went from a 12 to an 8. I thought I’d just go ahead and wear high heels to work, along with that too-tight black knit skirt I’d pulled from the back of my closet, as I threw off the dowdy working mother’s uniform. In a few more months, even my tummy was tighter. One day at work, Mike, the dapper men’s fashion editor, whistled at me in the hallway: “Girl, you have the best legs in the office. Look at you.”

Other things shifted, too. Everything at work seemed magically easier to handle. My boss, I noticed, was more relaxed around me — I think because I was livelier and more enthusiastic. Out on the street, men paid attention to me, as much as they did in my twenties. And I was undergoing more than a physical transformation. My inner Cinderella grew more upbeat. She might even have been the teensiest bit interested in having sex again, possibly in the morning. Around the house, I whistled — it had been decades. I would light scented candles, which I’d found cloying before. Soon enough, I saw a difference in the way I played with my children. Instead of tidying up or reading at the same time, I could just sit there playing the game, enjoying our outbursts of giggling. I woke up every morning with less fear and less resigned to simply bearing up under the weight of the daily grind. My whole life felt new. (If this sounds too good to be true, I challenge you to take one single tango lesson.)

It was a giddy period, those first few months. At times, I felt a little guilty, because my old self would have looked at these unfamiliar things captivating me — joy, happiness, love, beauty, eroticism — and called them indulgences. Now, I know they are essentials.

Then came a more sober and enriching time of learning about myself. On the dancefloor, I found metaphors for control and trust and blame — and they began to influence me in the rest of my life. The biggest lesson came with huge irony: I discovered what a good partnership feels like, and I was no longer prepared to settle for less in my own life. I finally split with Peter, but we remain good friends, and our kids thrive nicely between our two households.

Dancing has served me better than talking therapy, perhaps because the lessons tend to come through my body not my bossy brain. When I finally learnt to stop clutching my thighs in the downward swoop of a waltz and just let gravity do its job, I also learnt to laugh at myself for being a micromanaging working mother who thought she was in charge of everything. And instead of effortfully holding myself steady in an extreme pose, I saw that I could count on my partner to help out, let him do his job: support me. It seems to me that self-sufficiency became highly overrated during women’s liberation, and here was my chance to modulate that quality in myself. One day, after we got into a tangled mess, my instructor asked: “What could I be doing to cause that?” and I was amazed that he hadn’t pointed a finger at me, but instead looked at himself. It inspired me. I realised that blame is a waste of energy that could be channelled into waltzing.

The thing is, when you’re dancing, you realise that the song could end any minute, that everything is precious time. You have to be done with reticence and fear, and just let yourself go.

Quick, Before the Music Stops, by Janet Carlson, is published by Marshall Cavendish at £9.99

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