A buddy of mine wrote a cool piece about her experience taking a ballet class on a trip to Germany, which was posted as a guest blog on Adult Beginner. I recommend it for your reading pleasure.
It's a funny thing, this thing called dance. Ballet in particular quests for perfection, much like the Borg. And also like the Borg, we will never attain it. Not the best dancer on the best stage on the best day of his or her life. And we humble adults beginners, as the lady puts it, are so far out on the tail end of that perfect bell curve that it might make you wonder why we show up to class at all.
There are days when I wonder too.
I think we are best served to designate a small part of ourselves to wear a hat labeled "reality check". We can listen to this friend enemy companion for reminders of where we sit in the grand scheme of things and thus how important or unimportant it might be that we really nail that développé today.
Until the music turns on. Then we can tune her out completely.
At the end of the day, though, the people you connect with at the barre are often what makes the experience worth it, be they life long friends, or maybe just chance encounters in a foreign country.