my quest to touch my toes

I am a 34 year old female, 5'2", 123 lbs, average strength and health, who is on a quest. i'm not one who has ever been flexible. Though I took years of ballet as a child, the split which other girls found so easily has always alluded me. I accepted that and justified my ineptness easily because I could balence longer on my tippy toes than they could. But now as an adult, I find myself dismayed as I reluctantly roam from yoga class to yoga class, noting that what once was my body is no more. I used to be able to bend this and hold that as good as the next one. suddenly, time has crept up on me and my body is no longer permissive. In fact, it is so rebellious that the simple act of bending over and touching my toes seems miles out of my reach. When did this happen? As a young girl, though my mom always bugged me to sit up straight and dance teachers always yell at you to stretch before practice, no one ever told me I'd wake up one day and my body would no longer be willing to do as my mind wishes. Perhaps they did tell me and I didn't listen, but none the less, I never imagined the cavity that holds my soul would creak and crack with every step and bend. I never knew I would really 'use it or loose it'. And, as a female in my thirties, I never knew that I had lost it until I attended my first yoga class.
My expectations for yoga have always been less than pleasant. I hear from tv ads and others I know how healing and wonderful it is, but to me, its always appeared boring and hardly appealing. After my first car accident which was not my fault in 2001, I suffered a back and neck injury that has become my shadow, only this shadow is visible whether the sun is up or not. At the age of 23, at my prime in youthfulness, sexuality, and independence, a minor accident by many other comparisons became the beginning of a new era in my life. An era where my body was no longer at my beck and call, and I was prescribed by my doctors, of all things, yoga.