The Dance

Possibility engages in a pas de deux with anxiety, performing a dizzying ballet. Each seemingly dancing a duet discordant with the other. Anxiety with its infinitesimal steps, each movement calculated down to the curve of every finger. Its steps contained, restrained, beautifully dependable. Then there is possibility, bounding across the stage with unbridled bravado. The audience's breath catches with every leap, every lift. The entropy of each motion leaves them awed and disquieted, as they await the snap of an ankle upon descent. The gleam of possibility is always accompanied by the jagged prospect of failure. Anxiety reminds us to be prepared for the poor landing, the broken bone, while possibility reminds us that the thrill of the soar is worth the pain of the fall. A melding of two seemingly opposing energies. Together, their disharmony creates magic. 

To be alive is to be liable to risk. Inherent in all growth is change and innate in all change is loss. Whether the loss of beliefs, or jobs, or relationships, or former selves, to grow is to let go of what came before and allow ourselves to be transformed into something new. Growth reminds us of our aliveness. Alternatively, complacency is to be alive without living. Allowing life to happen to us, rather than emanate from us. What if we imagined with open-minds lives which alight our sense of purpose and joy? Then, as we dance with our trepidations, attempt them. Know that loss, failure, and heartbreak lie ahead, but what a gift to live fully enough to fail, to lose, to break.

I do not wish to be perfectly kept, locked away from where life happens, never failing, yet never trying. Give me the heat of the stage lights, the sound of my heartbeat thrumming as the velvet curtains swing apart. Allow me to dance.