She wanted to dance..

She wanted to dance.

I have a big zit on my cheek. I hate zits. I heard some lady in the restroom recently complaining about how zits always show up at the worst possible times. Is there ever a good time for a red pus filled bump between your eyes? No day is zit day in my book. They hurt, are ugly, and make all of us self-conscious. No one likes to feel self-conscious. It doesn’t matter who you are, it is a bad feeling.

Feeling bad and insecure is something that I have become accustomed to, and I am working hard every day to try and fix this horrid feeling that has followed me for so many years. It is work to not let myself get spun back into my old way of thinking. Some days I actually get to feel confident for an evening, and I like the feeling.

Tonight it is zit night and I am not feeling like I want to work at chasing away the insecurities. It is so much easier to not go out than it is working on chasing the unconfident girl away to make room for the one who is confident. Ugh, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to try today. I wonder how many people have to work this hard at feeling secure and fine. It should not be this hard, no way.

I know I am going out to this concert that I should be wanting to go see. It was easy to be excited about going when I got the tickets. It is much easier to buy them than to actually deal with covering the zit and going. I want to talk myself out of this night and I am spending a lot of time trying to think of a way to get out of it. My mind is going in the circle. This time I can tell that it is circling and this time I count to three and breathe deep. This time I tell myself my saying that I am trying tell myself every day. “Lisa, slow down and control your situation. Lisa, you are stronger than you think”

The circling begins to subside and I am still breathing right. I am still fine and I am going to a concert tonight. I am not letting this beat me, I am not letting these bad feeling about myself win tonight. I am not letting the bad feelings make me stay home tonight. Jason will make me go anyway, and that always turns out to be good thing in hind sight. At certain times I can be a real bitch about doing things that I don’t want to do. I always say “no, its fine. Whatever you want to do.” But I don’t always mean this, and he knows how to call me on my bullshit. I am not doing that tonight. It is mean and I am not going to find myself doing that to him tonight.

It is time to go and I don’t bother looking in the mirror. Big bad zit only gets worse if I look at it, I think looking at them makes them grow bigger and get nastier. It also makes me want to pick at it which is always a bad thing. It all starts with the looking though. Nope, I am not giving power to the zit that keeps me home and makes me feel bad later.

It is cold in Colorado today and dreary. We are pulling up to the little bar that this great band is going to play at tonight and I am excited. I am really excited to see them play in this little small town bar in the middle of nowhere. I love this. I have my happy hat on that Jason gave me not too very long ago and I am going to let it do its magic. I think everyone should have a magic happy hat in their closet. Even if you don’t want to take it out very often it is so much fun when you actually place it on your head and give into its gifts. I love happy hats.

This is a cool bar. It has a big dance floor in the middle with bar seats all around the outside of the floor looking in. It is an audience for whoever wants to dance and be an idiot. Then there are tables on the outside of the looking in at the dance floor seats. This is where I want home base to be. It is out of the way, yet I can still see the band make their faces. I love to watch the faces of the band members when they sing and play their guitars. It is so funny. Bass face is always a good one, there is some weird thing that most bass players do with their mouths. Ha-ha it is funny. It is good funny.

Jason and I order out greasy bar food and drinks. Greasy bar food is another treat about these outings. It is all the same and all delicious and awful at the same time. One bite too many can ruin an entire evening though. I try to pace the grease, I hate the grease ick that can overcome me with that one too many bites.

Jason and I are both happy tonight and we want to dance. We are getting better at the country dancing without own eclectic twist. I still fall on my ass or smash into a pole that gets in the way once in a while. Sometimes I knock people over a little bit too. Tonight we are on fire and in sync, and it is so fun. I am hot and sweaty and laughing my ass off. These are moments to be treasured, for life doesn’t present this very often. When it does, it is important to make the most of it. Jason and I are good at this and he has helped me remember how much fun I can be. We Can make other people have more fun too when we are with them, and this is a gift. This is a gift that we both have become aware of and do not take it for granted.

We can up with the plan to never leave a place sadder than we found it. It is kind of like the motto when camping to make your site cleaner than when you found it. We can’t seem to leave a place cleaner than we found it, but we do leave smiles behind and there are dozens and dozens of people who will attest to this. We have been given something that they all want and we share it with anyone who we meet. I love this job of leaving smiles behind.

We have a table full of friends in minutes of coming off the dance floor and they are all laughing. It is so fun. We both like to talk to strangers and it is funny the stuff that we say to them that makes them laugh. We don’t have to try to make them laugh, I think they are laughing just looking at us. But that is okay too as long as they are happy.

I have to go to the restroom and run off. I am still laughing about some funny thing as I fly through the bathroom door. There isn’t anyone in there which is a good thing because I may have hit someone hard with the door that was a push that pushed too easily type of door. Oops.

I am washing my hands and I see her out of the corner of my eye. My heart is suddenly in my throat for I saw this same woman earlier this evening and I know what is wrong and I know that I cannot fix this for her. I know who she is and why she looks the way she does. I know what is wrong. I just don’t know how to help. She was watching us dance tonight, I could see her watching Jason and I. She has the haunted look that I had for so many years, and I know why she feels like this. Ong what do I do? I don’t know what to do. I can feel my head begin to spin again and I can feel the air getting thick as it tries to go through my lungs.

I run out the door to the cold winter air and I feel the big cry starting to fill up my space. I can’t get her face out of my mind. I know what it wrong with her. I can’t help her... I can’t even help me. Ong. The tears are here. The tears are here again. Fuck. She is a sister in this ugly place that I am still fighting to get out of. She wanted to dance. Dam nit she wanted to dance and she doesn’t think that she can because that rat bastard won’t dance with her. She thinks that she is ugly and fat and not worthwhile. Ong she feels like I did. She has the same look in her eyes. She looks like I did. She is me back then, and she needs help.

I can’t help her. I can’t help her yet. Yet is the key word to this sentence. I know that I am going to find a way to help the haunted eyes that don’t think that they can. They are the eyes that have stopped dreaming and are stuck in a place of awfulness and fear. I am going to help the fear in the eyes. I am going to help them one day.

She wanted to dance. She only wanted to dance and he won’t dance with her.

She wanted to dance