Born to Dance

December 2, 2023

It’s already December 2 and I have yet to put away the Fall decorations. Yesterday I decided to forgo Christmas decorating altogether as causing unnecessary pain, despite discovering last year how much I enjoy it.

A blanket of sadness nearly smothered me. I tried telling myself it wasn’t important enough to feel near-grief. On a scale of things that matter in my little world, never mind the big world, Christmas decorating must rate around a -2.

But there’s no denying when emotions speak. And this was a big, round, slightly pulsating orb of something I didn’t want to feel. 

Since making it go away only required changing my mind, I decided the heck with the pain and onward with making things look pretty. I’d rather accept the discomfort than dwell in gloom for the next month.

*****

I suspect that the upwelling of grief was an accumulation of eight years of foregoing activities that provide joy, spontaneous movement, upliftment. Walking without continually seeking the least painful way to ambulate is but a distant memory. Maybe if I was a born couch potato, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but I was born to dance under the stars.

There’s a part of me that scoffs at my operatic inner expressions of woe is me. The human experience on Earth is exactly the one I’m having. “Old age” is accompanied by pain and deterioration. If we’re lucky, the pain can be alleviated by repairing the deterioration, as I anticipate doing with hip replacement.

However, I sincerely doubt anybody easily accepts pain or disease as “my part of the human experience.” We want the experience of centenarians who are lauded for walking five miles a day and dancing a tango at the Saturday night ballroom. If they can do it, why can’t I? Reminding ourselves that it must be their soul contract to be pain-free and mobile till they drop dead while we’ve supposedly “agreed to” years of painful disintegration doesn’t help. 

I wonder if, as the planetary energies intensify, we’re becoming more aware of our preconceptions, and starting to question what we’ve been told to accept as inevitable. The onslaught of frailty and degeneration just as we’re entering more meaningful mental and emotional stages of our lives seems discordant, a musician out of tune with the orchestra of the universe.

*****

I’m always trying to balance the apparent insignificance of my life with the seemingly outsized effect any life can have on the energetics of the world. If I slide into gloom, so slides the world? Not exactly, but certainly so slide the humans and animal souls within my sphere. When I’m gloomy, you can bet they feel it.

Somewhere between self-pity and self-indulgence lies the healing realm of self-care. Perhaps I can reframe woe is me as Here, child, let me hug you. Then let’s go find the Christmas wreath and put it on the front door. That’s all we need to do today.

Arm in metaphorical arm, my sparkling, brown-eyed inner child and I ascend the stairs to find the wreath, and when we hang it on the door, our broad smiles light up the neighborhood.