Just like the old days

I mentioned a car crash earlier. It was a doozy.

The little red star is the headrest and kind of shows the predicament I was in. 

I was out line dancing that night. My coworkers finally convinced me to go. See, I hated country music so this took effort!  I loved to dance though so that win over my dislike for the music. (We'll get to that change later!)

After a fun night of dancing, I was headed home when a car swerved in my lane with no time to react. Just like that I went from dancing to a trama fight to a wheelchair. Amazing how fast life can change. 

Ironically I was hit by a country line dance instructor. He wasn't from the club I was at, which would have been nice since we wouldn't have been traveling in opposite directions. 

With a screwed up left arm and both legs broken my dancing days were a thing of the past. Heck, for a while I thought my walking days were over. 

To shorten a story that spans a couple decades I will bring you up to the last year. 

A couple wonderful friends at Weight Watchers spent a long time trying to get me to join them at a 7 a.m. Aqua Zumba class Saturday morning. There were a lot of strikes against it. The time, the day, and most of all the dancing. 

I resisted for well over a year. Stubbornness is part of my heritage on both sides of the family.  It wasn't a matter of the time really. I am at work by 7 so I'm used to being up. It wasn't the trauma of wearing a swimsuit, although finding one was a challenge.   It was fear though. Fear that I'd find out I really couldn't dance. I'd done a little awkward and unbalanced swaying at a wedding here and there, terrified of falling with every step, but tried to really dance?  Nope. Why would someone who loved dancing not try?!?

Because if I tried and I couldn't, it would be something I truly lost. If you don't try, you don't fail, and sometimes that's easier, at least you think so in your head. Mostly it's because your heart longs for it, but you aren't sure what accepting the cold hard truth will do to you. For me it would be the final straw so to speak. It would be yet another thing I couldn't do, one that I loved to boot. 

I was terrified that first time. Barely slept the night before. Then I got in the water. I'd like to say I was brilliant, like a water ballet, but I was slow, winded, and always a good 15-20 seconds behind the instructor.  It wasn't pretty, but it was awesome!

Last night, as we headed to the dance floor I had that moment of fear. But then I danced. First just slow songs, but then we went out for some faster ones. One led to another, then another, songs too much fun to sit out. 

I twirled, I shimmied, I moved to the beat. 

I danced. 

Fear of failure held me back on one level, but pushed me on in others.  I was afraid, but I never gave up dreaming of dancing again. 

It took over 21 years, but it was worth it! Oh how it was worth it!

*here's my disclaimer. I'm not a dancer in any sort of professional or even amateur way. I'm just someone who always loved to dance. Grew up listening to music and dancing around with friends. But that is the criteria I use to call what I do "dancing."