On Learning How To Dance

It’s like I’ve spent my whole life believing I couldn’t dance.

I could see everyone else dancing as they laughed and spun with joy, but when I tried I was so somber with limbs that were stiff and heavy. I wasn’t dancing, I realized. I was just moving. It didn’t feel the same.

But today I realized that it’s not that I can’t dance, it’s just that I’ve been playing the wrong tracks.

Tracks that told me I wasn’t light, or enough. Tracks that told me I was no good at dancing. Tracks that told me I couldn’t ever dance like the happy people I saw everywhere so why even bother? Tracks that were made in desperation out of fear. Tracks that were sent to help me once but only keep me small and harm me now. Tracks that weren’t even mine that others had accidentally, and intentionally, given to me.

Tracks that came from another age, another time.

A time where I didn’t know how awe-inspiring I am.

How beautiful. How special. How free.

The drumbeat of my heart has been too slow and steady for too long. Now it jumps and wriggles free, and beats faster than ever. Sometimes it even skips a beat. It can be dangerous and risky, sure, but there is more life in me now than there has ever been before.

I let the rhythm take me and I smile with all my teeth. I don’t care what it looks like to others because this dance isn’t for them, it’s for me.

I write all of the tracks now. I choose where and when I listen. I am very particular about who I dance with when I do not dance alone.

I see others watching me now wondering how to get here and feel this way.

Listen to your own music, baby. It’s been inside you all along.