Dance down the street
Last night looking out my window I was a woman dancing down the street. Actually, I saw her dancing down a quiet side street that is opposite my window leading to a busy main road. And I expected her to stop and walk as she reached the main road full of cars passing by. She didn’t. She continued her shimmy and sway as she went, headphones in, huge smile.
I wanted to open my window and yell after her to wait while I put on some running shoes and joined her. I didn’t. But it made me happy. It made to content in a way to see this women enjoying her life, dancing with no cares down a street in Oxford.
She was fully her.
I turned 30 in February. The big 30, the new decade. And as cliche as it may sound I understand why so many people say they suddenly feel more like them when they are 30. I did. It wasn’t a magic overnight thing, very few things in life are. But it has been this slow creeping knowing of myself that I noticed around 28, then 29 and at 30 I feel like I really truly don’t want to be anyone else.
So I am writing this post because I know that everyone, or everyone I know at least, goes through seasons when they don’t feel like themselves. To put in context the words I am about to write you need to know a little more about me. Or the me of my 20’s and teens and probably pre-teens, lets be honest.
I like people to like me, and I am pretty okay at making friends wherever I go. But for a long time those friends got a semi-adjusted version of me that fit into a specific culture or fashion or trend that they were into. I adjusted me to be a sort-of mirror for them. It was fake, and painful and although it meant I had a lot of ‘friends’ I wasn’t really known. The longer this went on, (and throw in a relationship where this was at it’s extreme) the less I knew who I was, what I liked, what I was passionate about. I then went to work at a non-profit. Non-profit work is incredible, but it can be all consuming and it was for me. I lost myself, my likes and dislikes and my hobbies, my own personal happiness and happy spaces.
I am aware that little explanation of past me sounds hard and horrible. It wasn’t all bad. But for the purpose of what I am writing it is the bit you need to know.
One day - a very wise and small and mighty women asked me this question ‘But what do you want? What do you want to do with your life?’
No-one had asked me that question before, or at least, not in a way I heard it.
I realised I needed to find the answer to that question. So I picked up a paint brush again, and some charcoal (I’m not a talented artist but I love to create art) and I read books I wanted to and I rediscovered the bands and music I adored when I was a teenager. Avril Lavigne will always be a winner, with Jimmy Eat World and All American Rejects closely following. I found my seemingly superficial things, the things I loved because I loved them. No-one else.
And from there, I stopped excusing other peoples behaviour, I stopped trying to be friends with people who I just did not get on with. I found myself less willing or needing to please everyone around me all the time. I found my own relationship with God again. The one that was mine, not shaped contently by what the world told me it should be. I found my opinions again and my passions for justice again. I found my integrity. I found I felt more myself.
I don’t know who you are, or how you found this corner of the internet, or what your life is like at the moment. But here is what I do know. I know life is one giant big journey, one giant unknown a lot of the time. I know there is only one of everyone and that each one is created equal, beautiful and with purpose. I know that it is easy to loose ourselves in the world and those around us and I know that the world looses something when we are not fully us.
The woman dancing down the street was enjoying herself, for herself. There was noone with her, her moves came out as joyful movement to the music in her ears. It wasn’t for an audience or the passing cars. Just her.
The world if full of things we need to care about, people to love and give to. It is full of matters we should put before ourselves. But sometimes, I think more often that we let ourselves, we need to give ourselves space to be us. To enjoy the things we enjoy, to find our own self. Because from that place we care better about the world and for the world.
So with no authority at all, and simply because I have learnt to myself, I give you permission to dance down the street to your music, sing loudly in your kitchen, drink coffee and paint even if it isn’t good and listen to all the Avril Lavigne you can - singing Sk8ter Boi is always worth it!
R.
