D IS FOR DANCING

If you will recall, the theme for this A to Z challenge is Phases, Passions, and/or Life Lessons.  When I begin a hobby I never really know whether it will be a phase, passion, or turn into a life lesson.  I have always loved to dance.  In fact,  I wrote this post about the love affair I had with dance as a little girl.  It was one of the first blogs I ever posted.  I am not sure I had any followers at that time... hahaha. 

If you read that post, then you know that story ended in heartbreak for that little girl.  However, dancing and I were not finished with one another. 

When I moved down south, I became fascinated with country line dancing.  I didn't participate.  However, I was in thrall whenever my then-boyfriend and I would go to a bar that had line dancers.  That inner voice would pipe up and say, "I really wish I could do that."  My boyfriend had no interest in learning.  Sigh.  I kept my seat and watched. 

After we split, I moved back in with my parents.  That meant moving back to my hometown.  Honestly, that felt like failure on so many levels, and I had NO DESIRE to reconnect with anyone I knew from high school who still lived in town.  I didn't want to explain how my life had taken so many wrong turns.  I had given up my job in New York City (more on that with letter "G") for a guy and then things went wrong with the guy.  And now I was back at home with no idea of what I wanted to do for a career.  My life sucked.  And I was living with my parents.  My career options were terrible, mostly because I didn't know what I wanted.  When you don't know what you want, you can rest assured that you will not find it.  

Sidenote: to anyone in the future who wants to take time off to go "look for yourself," let me save you the trip.  You are right here.  Just get a job.  It will help you to immediately figure out what you want, and don't want, to do for the rest of your life.  I know that it helped me.  I kept changing jobs and hating them.  Nope.  Not the one.  Not that one, either.  In the meantime...

I did the ONE THING I knew I wanted to do.  I started taking country line dance lessons at the local bar.  Turns out that I was really good at it.  Mostly because I have a really good memory.  Or I did.  I could retain the steps to a lot of different dances.  It wasn't long before I was taking lessons almost every weeknight, and then spending every weekend there.  All I ever drank was water, because a good dancer doesn't drink and dance.  I also immediately lost 10 pounds and was down to a healthy 107 pounds.  That is different than the unhealthy 102-105 pounds that I stick consistently with a migraine.

I am posting a photo:

 As you can see, I wasn't a fan of dressing up.  A bright T-shirt, jeans, and my cowboy boots were my usual fare.  And for those of you who have met me, or seen my video, or other pictures... yes, that is me with red hair.  I think I have it french braided in that pictured.  Or it might have been in a ponytail.  You get hot dancing.  In either case, I call that the Red Hair Phase.  My hair has been through all of the phases.  Now, it doesn't go through any.  I am allergic to the hair color, so what you see is what you get!

Eventually I got into partner dancing at the bar and that was also a bunch of fun.  I had a couple of fellows that I danced with regularly.  The dancing crowd pretty well knew everyone else and hung out together.  It was a whole lot of fun.

When mom and I moved to Georgia, I tried to make a go of it at the local bar there, but it was not the same.  The bar was not in a very nice neighborhood.  The people were not as friendly.  I ended up spraining my ankle (which is a whole other blog) and that pretty well ended what was already an unsuccessful transition to a new place for dancing.

Rating on the Dancing: I've Been Through Two Phases.  I'm not saying that there couldn't be a Third in My Future.  You Just Don't Know...

Image found at www.weheartit.com

Have you ever tried Country Line Dancing or Partner Dancing?  Did you dance as a child (ballet, tap, jazz)?  Have you ever tried any other type of dancing like ballroom dancing?  Have you always wanted to dance, but never had the time or courage? Do you let others hold you back from things you wish you could do?

C IS FOR COUNSELOR

The summer before seventh grade I went to Pioneer Girl's Camp for the first time.  Pioneer Girls is a Christian organization run through your local church.  During the year, the group meets weekly.  They have a camp somewhere in your state that your child can attend for a week (or more).  The boys have a similar organization, and used the same camp for the first part of the summer for five weeks, and then the girls got the camp for five weeks. 

I loved it. 

I went back to camp every summer for an increasing number of weeks each summer.  I even joined their 2-year CILT program (Counselor in Leadership Training).  It is a rigorous training program that requires a lot of time during the year fulfilling requirements to complete the program, as well as a lot of time during the weeks at camp.  That first year of CILT, I stayed four weeks at camp.  I spent two weeks fairly immersed in CILT stuff.  The second two weeks I was free to just be a camper again.   Whee.

I was completely unprepared for what happened that next summer.  I should have been ready, but I was NOT.   It just didn't occur to me until I got to camp that after the two weeks of the CILT program, THAT WAS IT.  We would have this big ceremony and then I would be a counselor.  There would be no more fun weeks of being a camper *ever again.* 

Every year there is a Theme Song that we sing as much as possible in an effort to remember it.  I must admit that year's song is the only one I remember.  The chorus went something like this, "Mmmm I want to linger, Mmmm a little longer, Mmm a little longer here with you..." I cried through the whole thing every time we sang it.  It was a waterworks show.  In fact, my tear ducts were always on a short trigger.  As graduation approached, I knew I didn't want to graduate.  I didn't want to grow up.  I didn't want to be the adult.  I didn't want to leave childhood behind.  I could see it rapidly approaching and I just wasn't ready to give it up.... yet.

There are people who go through life and have this big mid-life crisis because they don't know what happened.  Their youth somehow slipped by them without them even knowing.  I always knew that would NEVER happen to me.  I knew precisely when my youth got left in the dust.  It was the summer of 1985.  It didn't go easy, either.  I like to think I was a caterpillar before that summer.  That summer was my chrysalis.  And fighting your way out of one those things isn't remotely pretty.  It is a lot of kicking, crying, screaming, frustration, and exhaustion.  All the while you know something has died.  You don't feel the same, and you are mourning that caterpillar.  Meanwhile, you have no idea what you will look like when you finally get out of what feels like a Death Trap.  It's hard being caught in the In Between Places. 

It's only after it is all over that you see things for what they are.  See you for what you are.  It's something of a shock when it's all over.  You don't even recognize yourself.  Who is that?  I don't know that being.  But, it is me and it's okay.  Better than okay.   I'm a butterfly.

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:"    Ecclesiastes 3:1

image found at www.weheartit.com 


Did you have a defining moment or experience that marked your passage from childhood to adulthood?  Have you had clarity about realizing your days of childhood have passed you by and you are now officially an adult?  How did that happen?  Did you ever go to summer camp?  Was that a wonderful or terrible experience? 

B IS FOR BREAKFAST CLUB

"I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."    ~Emily Bronte

The Breakfast Club was a movie, not a dream.  However, I feel that the above quote most certainly does apply.  I shall never forget sitting in the movie theatre watching that film and seeing all of the illusions I had shatter about how I fit into the drama that was playing out at my own high school. 

The first day of high school I had already undergone a transforming experience with regard to my junior high school bully.  She allowed me to see her fear about this new school environment, and the ground underneath both of our feet shifted.  By being so afraid that she had to ask for MY help, she lost all of her power over me.  We both knew she would never get it back.  I understood everything about bullies after that first day of high school; they no longer had any control over me.

However, cliques and labels still were a mystery to me until The Breakfast Club.  We were all pigeon-holed into a grouping that we could never break free of... until I saw that movie.  And then I realized that, once again, it was the Same Old Story.  That story was a junior high mash-up revisited of The Wizard Of Oz.  The only thing that ever holds you back is the Scary Dude Behind The Curtain. 

Watching The Breakfast Club, I could almost feel the glass breaking and exploding and flying away.  It felt like freedom.  Or maybe it was like being in a dark room and someone turning on the light.  Nothing was any different than it was before except I COULD SEE IT FOR WHAT IT ACTUALLY WAS. 

Yep, all of those labels were still there.  Popular kids, athletes, brains, theatre kids, music kids, losers, whatever.  The thing was I could choose to be a part of those groups without being limited by those groups.  More importantly, no longer was someone being in one of those groups mean that I couldn't talk to them, or they to me.  They weren't any better or worse than I was.  Just different.  My fear of someone in a different group, by virtue of their difference, ended.  My inability to speak to someone because we weren't part of the same social group was over.  If I chose not to speak to you... well, it had nothing to do with what social group you were in.

As someone who has watched that movie many times throughout the years, I have come to take away different messages from it.  When I was a teenager, it really changed all of my ideas about how I saw myself, and everyone else, in that arena called high school.  I came to the conclusion that everyone was afraid and lashing out and if you started meeting people with kindness, that is what you would get back.  

As an adult, I watch that movie and I see a variation on that theme.  All of the characters, adults and kids, are coming from a place of fear.  All of them are afraid of  something and that is what has brought them to that place, that day.  When we act out of fear, we bring ugly things into our lives.  Now, when I have something in my life that I don't want, I find myself standing in the mirror and saying to myself, "What did you do, say, think, that brought this into your life?"  And when I can figure that one out, I can crawl, walk, or drag myself toward a solution.  There is always a door of some kind.  There is always a way out.

The Breakfast Club: A Passion and a Life Lesson.     


image found on photobucket.com 

Did The Breakfast Club change any perceptions that you had about your life when you saw it?  Was there a movie that you saw when you were a teenager that altered the way you saw the world and your place in it?  Do you feel that if you bring kindness you tend to get it?  That most people act badly out of fear?  That if you have something in your life that you don't want it is because you brought it and you have the power to get rid of it?