Tag: excuses

Dancing

We went to a dance event tonight. It was a country event, but we came for the west coast swing finals part of it, and the social dancing after those events. My man and I did.

And it was awesome.

We danced with each other and with other people. I gave him a sort of mini lesson after we first went downstairs and he got a bit overwhelmed just by seeing everything. (Apparently he had spent the whole day being scared and nervous and trying to create reasons not to come because of that. I had kept asking him all day what was wrong and what was going on, since he was being so snippy and unkind toward me and stressed and all. He had only ever told me that he just needed to ‘get over it’ about each little thing.m, though he never really did… until we started dancing, that is.) He then asked me to dance in the main room before and after the competitions and awards, and he voluntarily sought out four other women and danced with them (always while I was out of the room, naturally). And he and I danced more and more, and I showed him more and more bits, and he got better and better. And it was awesome.

I had begun being comfortable with the idea that I likely would not get to do west coast swing with my husband, whoever he would be, because I never much liked the men who would frequent events and get involved in the typical social culture of dance events and all – read ‘lots of alcohol and sleeping around and being pompous’ – and found it unlikely I would meet my man at any event. And then this guy showed up. In our first night of knowing one another, he voluntarily offers up that he grew up doing a bit of ballroom for kids, and that his favorite dance was probably west coast swing. He’d only learned a bit, and it was all self-taught, but he loved it. And so, God blesses us…

Thank you, God, for this lovely opportunity. Thank you for bringing my man and me together. Thank you for this awesome step into the dance world for the both of us this weekend. Phew. Thank you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Capisco

Sometimes, I feel it is the people who have known me the least in person who know me the most. I was thinking about how, today, I was messaging with my buddy in Italy. We haven’t been in much contact the past month or two, mostly because he has been in a big planting season – I think it was planting… oops – and has been working really long, rough hours, and sleeping when he can. But he let me know this would be the case, so I haven’t worried much about it. Anyway, we were messaging today – it has been a more frequent thing the past week or two – and I found myself just suddenly sharing with him about some of my book-writing concerns.

You see, I know I can tell stories, and I know I can write. Yet, I keep not writing for a book. Not officially or directly, anyway. And I was suddenly blurting out the concerns I have around that today. Why? Because it seemed like he was the person who could hear me the best. Despite ay risks of its being lost in translation, of course. 😛 But seriously, it felt like he could respond in a way that wouldn’t give me the excuses that other people in my life might give me. Nothing about why I probably haven’t done it or about how life has gotten in the way or anything like that. He couldn’t feed me any of my own excuses. And that might be because he has been around me the least. He knows the daily me the least, if that makes sense. Because we have had such a low-risk friendship, we have been open in ways that have kept our personal excuses out of the mix, and almost entirely so.

And so, I shared my concerns and how I’m not writing yet, and he asked a couple questions or so, which I answered. And then he just told me to do it. If I want to do it for myself, then do it. If it isn’t for myself, then don’t do it. But, if it is for myself, then go for it, and get started – do what I need to do to make the beginning happen, and now. Just as we say here, he reminded me of the ideas that 1) life is short, and 2) it is better to have regrets for things we’ve done than remorse for those we never attempted. I do not want to live a life unexamined – I want to live a life well-lived, and true to myself.

And part of that is writing books. So, novels, here we come.

P.S. They might be more like novellas, or novelettes, just FYI… I’m not sure they’ll be long Twilights or Harry Potters. ;P

Post-a-day 2020

Accepting a Dream

Have you ever finally realized how you feel about something, – something kind of big – and, rather than be shocked about it, notice that you already knew how you felt deep down, but it was really just a matter of being unwilling to admit it to yourself?  I feel like I have been a boy who loves the color pink, and, resisting the color for years for the social construct’s idea of what colors boys are meant to like best, depriving myself of something I love, becoming so good at making excuses not to love pink, that I even began believing my own made-up excuses (and had other people reminding me of the regularly, as though it had been their ideas in the first place, instead of given to them over and over again by me).

Anyway, I’m not actually a boy, and I don’t particularly like the color pink (oddly enough), but I feel as though my situation is similar.  I have resisted the dance world for “reasons” of practicality.  If you get injured, people’s preferences change, you offend someone, you get sick, you take vacation, or any number of about a bajillion* other things that do not endanger typical job-holders, then you do not make money.  Being a professional dancer (of any kind, though I am mostly referencing partner dances, as opposed to the common understanding that being a dancer is synonymous with being an exotic dancer or stripper) is simply dangerously impractical.  And so I easily brushed it aside when I was younger, seeing how it clearly is a terrible idea, and so there was no point even to consider it.

In doing that, though, I eventually let my reasoning take over as an excuse for not improving in my dancing, as well as for giving in to my fears, and not speaking up enough or demanding enough that actually would have made a difference in my dance opportunities.  But after all, I’m not aiming at a career in this, so why invest more time and money than necessary for a simple pastime or hobby, hmm?  A thought which, of course, led me to a sad state of affairs both mentally and performance-wise with dancing.  I not only want to be good enough to be one of the professionals, I actually want to be one of them.  Period.

Period.

And I’ve never actually said that before.  It’s kind of terrifying, really, even just considering how much I just might mean all of that.  Deep down, I know I mean it.  And that in no way changes my surface level of resistance.  Well, a tad, but not much – I still don’t want to accept it, because of what all that would mean regarding my past with dance.  Granted, I realize that I am the one interpreting things in this way, making them mean this or that.  Even still… if I truly want to be a professional dancer, and truly be good enough to be one, as well, then I have spent a good amount of time doing a lot of nothingness, when I could have been actively seeking and working toward my absolutely achievable dance dream.  It’ll take a good amount of high quality work, for sure, but that in no way alters the achievability of it.

So then, where does that leave me now, and what steps do I take next and next and next to achieve my dream?

 

 

*I have spent most of my life believing that word to be spelled with a g.

Post-a-day 2017