The Dance (for Lyn)

Something I was feeling at the time

He had always been a confident man. Always a leader, a take charge kind of guy. Some said he was cocky, others found him competent. Life changes, sometimes slowly over years and sometimes in a second, chosen or not, but it will always change. He sometimes feared that change, feared aloneness. Feared being afraid.

 

When his life changed, it changed suddenly. Things read, better left unread, that can never be erased from the memory no matter how hard he wanted to. Awakened to the truth of his life, the falsity of what he had taken for granted and the realization that life would never again be the same, he stood confused and questioning. Everything and everyone, his place in the world and his very identity.

 

So he examined all of it. Looked at what he was and how he acted and reacted, what gave him joy and what caused sadness. When was he really happy and when was he merely content? He tried to make sense of the things she said as she left his life for the last time. Was any of it true? Could that be who he was?

 

True self-evaluation can be a difficult thing. It can be painful, but it can liberate the heart and soul when some measure of truth is achieved without artifice. He understood that at some point he had quit living and started to observe life, instead. Watched people enjoy and experience while never taking that chance for himself. Trying new things was never an option although he would watch others give something a shot, watch them have fun and watch them...live.

 

Change can be hard to achieve. He was finally, after a lifetime of confidence, unsure of himself. Self-conscious yet determined, he set out to find himself. The hardest thing was to open up to people and really try to connect with them. He had always felt that was a skill he possessed, but now realized that he never really allowed himself to know people. And so he changed. Sometimes with great effort, but change happened.

 

He sat across from her, she was sipping a pinot and looked......amazing. Sparkling hazel eyes in a delicate pixie face, framed with soft blond hair and a smile that melted the heart. She was shy but open. Often, she would glance away, but when her gaze returned and their eyes met, he could feel a depth that took his breathe away. Then she asked him to dance. Not some slow, lets go out and sway to the music dancing, but a modern up-tempo get out there and move actual dance. Another part of life he had always watched but never tried. So with racing pulse and butterflys the size of F-18 fighter jets in his gut, he reached for her hand and walked out to the dance floor. And he danced.

 

She was nothing less than a goddess. She moved with a sensual, confidant ease and he found himself mesmerized. This girl he found wildly attractive at the table became beautiful beyond his ability to describe. The music she moved to made her so very alive. The music she moved to made him come alive,too, for the first time in a long time. He never wanted it to stop. Dancing with her was so very intimate and feelings that had been dormant so long came bubbling up. So he danced for her, he danced for himself, he danced....for life.