DANCE

It’s been quite a bit of time since my last post. I could tell you it’s because I’ve been super-busy (and that’s half true) but I think the more honest reason is that I’ve been a little ashamed and a little upset with myself. I feel like in the past month, I’ve started freaking out again about “next year”— where I’m gonna live, what I’m gonna do, and why I’m gonna do it. Realizing that deadlines for some options were fast approaching, I began to convince myself that I had to make a decision; I had to know now. As you can imagine, that only made me less certain and more stressed. 

            So this past month has felt like the opposite of the positive development I’ve made in the previous months. Instead of being at peace with the unknown and the undecided, I’ve been constantly worrying about it and making myself anxious again. Instead of finding calmness and insight in my meditations, I’ve found my mind teeming with activity that prevents me from the tranquility I was able to find only a few short weeks ago. And then I judged that. I looked at the sincere acceptance of where I was with things a month ago, compared it to now, and I felt like I “messed up” somewhere. 

I felt like I had undone all the progress I had made. And then I didn’t want to share any of it because it made me feel like a hypocrite and a phony. How could I have made all these self-discoveries and inculcated these new open-minded perspectives into my life if, in the end, I regressed back to my original insecurities and doubts? How could I have really made myself any better if, without even realizing it, I had slipped back into the exact same place?

After some time in which I was sure I had “nothing to write” that was worthy of my blog, I realized that writing about this was the  right next step. I started this blog to help me address some of my fears, yet here I was not writing because of fear. Because of insecurity, because of vulnerability, because of the possibility of giving you an impression of which I wasn’t proud. But once I recognized that all, I started to see it differently. 

Before, I was feeling like I had regressed. I was feeling like the point I’m at now would “let people down.” But I don’t feel that way anymore. I can’t tell you that I’m not still anxious about next year. I can’t tell you that I’m not still thinking about the possibilities everyday and researching when I can.  But what I can tell you is that there’s nothing wrong with that. Because here’s the thing—I haven’t undone anything. Sure, maybe I’ve taken a step back from where I felt I was in December, but that’s one step in the grand scheme of my life. And, cliché or not, I’ve realized recently that life isn’t a race. We’re not on this one track in which we’re only expected and allowed to move forward. Life is more of a dance— whose beauty is in the movements, the steps forward and back, side to side. There isn’t a clear start and finish point that has to be reached. Instead, there’s plenty of room on the dance floor to move as we please. 

My original plan with this blog was to justify my one step backward with the assertion that “as long as it’s two-steps-forward-to-one-step-back then it’s fine because I’m still moving forward”. But I don’t know that I truly feel that way anymore. Because what really makes “forward” so great? “Forward” is only right when you know that what you want in life is straight ahead of you. And, at least personally, that isn’t always the case. No, I usually don’t know what I want next in life…but I often find it in those side steps and even the backward ones. There’s beauty in all of the steps. And none of them need to be justified. 

I write this post mostly as a reminder to myself, because at the end of the day the person who is most critical of my path is me. The expectations and reactions I fear are those of which I have created for myself; I know that in reality my life is filled with Dani-supporters, not Dani-critics. So instead of worrying about the reactions to my “hippy-dippy” life-is-a-dance metaphor, I’m not gonna elaborate anymore. I’m not gonna introduce counter-arguments and address them, as I tend to do, in order to admit my reasoning may have flaws and that there are different perspectives. I know that; you know that. But I am drawing comfort from this perspective and I am embracing it.  I invite you to do the same. I invite you to dance with me.