East Coast Swing

How is it that after all my talk, all my goal setting, all my nights of lying awake and praying for these opportunities... that after all that, I disregard them when they come along?


I spent the night at a home for teenage girls who are either pregnant, young mothers, or have been abused. We ate junk food, made scrapbooks, rocked their babies, and listened to the others tell us the gender and name and due dates for their unborn babies. I love going to see them. But every time I walk out of that house and into the parking lot... I want to cry. Most of those girls are 15 years old. And they have already been through more than most of the adults I know. I don't even want to know where the fathers are. Freshmen in highschool. They should be learning algebra. I just can't help but think how wrong it is that a 15 year old girl knows anything about breast feeding.


So after I left the Home, I decided to find Kat and Sarah who were downtown learning how to swing dance. I got into the parking lot as they were walking out of the building, and they did all but jump on me, telling me I should come to the studio with them to dance some more. Sully was walking sheepishly behind them... though I'm not sure he was as reluctant as he wanted to appear. Dancing. I suck at dancing. Two left feet. I have all the rhythm I could want, but when it comes to channeling it through my knees and my feet.... you might as give it up. What is sad, is I would give anything to be able to do it. You know what holds me back?


Do you know what always holds me back?


Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's embarrassment. Tonight, it was a total lack of self confidence. I stink (my deodorant, to be quite honest, wore off hours ago). My face is all broken out, my toenails are not painted, and my hair is flipping in ten different directions (I thank Phil's genes for that). I do not want to get up close and personal with any guy tonight.... I do not want to look like a fool with two left feet on top of feeling utterly unattractive. Being pushed around on the dance floor is the last thing I want. How superficial.


This makes me more sad than anything. Because I know that the problem lies within me... my perception is my reality and the mirror is just reflecting my thoughts. And my thoughts are causing others to see me differently as well. But my thoughts aren't always of this nature. In the words of Miss Archer, sometimes I think I'm amazing. Sometimes I can't fathom why no one seems to be interested in me... on some nights, it's their problem. Not tonight. Tonight... it's all mine. I'll own up to this one.


What I wouldn't give to be on the dance floor right now. East Coast Swing with Sam or Sully... listening to Kat and Sarah make fun of themselves. Getting to know the two girls who were riding with them who I'd never met before.

Instead, I am lying on my loft floor on a bean bag. Resenting my feet. Wishing to be a little bit more like my younger sister... You know it's not supposed to work that way. She is supposed to look up to me. She's supposed to think I hung the moon and am the smartest person in her world. Instead, I find myself watching her and being in awe. Of her beauty, of her confidence, of her awareness, of her quirkiness. She is as impossible as they come... but she is amazing. No one yells louder, cries harder, or laughs better than she does. Tonight, I feel like the younger sister.

I will learn how to east coast swing. Even if it means on my kitchen floor in my bare feet.

That, come to think of it, might be the best place to learn after all.