Dancin' In Your Drawers : JANET

"Promise me you'll always remember : You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - (Christopher Robin to Pooh) A.A. Milne

I should have known better than to avow in my last post that I would publish all the underwear dancing feedback I've received within a week or two. Once again life had other plans which have mainly consisted of doing my best to take care of myself and rest every waking moment I’m not at work, due to a pesky little virus that decided to pay me a visit as of last weekend. I refuse to complain because this was absolutely nothing compared to anything I’ve experienced in the illness realm over the past few years, but nonetheless I wasn’t quite feeling up to thought provoking writing or the typing of it.  I’m still not feeling the greatest, but sometimes taking care of oneself means doing so emotionally. Feeling in need of some emotional TLC today, I’ve decided to blog. As I mentioned in my last entry, due to time constraints and still working on lining up a couple of interviews in the not so distant future (Yes, interviews! They’re coming, and I promise they will be worth the wait!) I’m going to make the focus of my next few posts, sharing the fun and inspiring thoughts some of my long time friends sent my way about their personal experiences dancing in their underwear. I’ve held on to these emailed thoughts and musings since they started trickling into my inbox early this summer. I hope that despite the lapse in time, they’ll still provide you with the uplifting and even heartwarming feelings they stirred up for me when I read them.

To kick things off, I’m starting with the beautiful reply I received from my dear friend, Janet. A few posts back I made mention that the people I am fortunate enough to have in my life right now really do accept me and love me just as I am in a way that I have never felt so strongly before, but what I didn’t add is that whether I always believed them or not, some of those very people have been accepting me "as is" for quite some time now. Janet is most definitely an excellent case in point. To write about the bumps in the road of life throughout our friendship would require a book, but I can assure you that I’m immensely grateful for every single page. Janet became my friend when I didn’t really have any concept of who or what I was outside of my eating disorder. I was at a new school, starting late in the year due to my first string of hospitalizations for my anorexia and that’s all anyone knew of me. I was the anorexic girl who everyone tried to be extra nice to because I was “fragile” and “sick”. With those labels as an introduction how would anyone possibly see me for me…. if there even was a me? I’m still not quite sure how, but Janet did. She became a key part of a group of the kindest, funniest, unique, and non-judgmental young ladies I have ever met who, unbeknownst to us, were solidifying what has grown into a lifelong bond of friendship. All because she and the other young ladies - more on them in future posts. stay tuned. - saw in me what I couldn’t, and they liked it a whole heck of a lot. We quickly coined ourselves “The Clump”, and the rest is history. To this day, some of my most sincere giggles come from reminiscing about the ridiculous things that would happen when we put our heads together. But as enjoyable as it would be to take a stroll down memory lane and recall the fun and happy times, I bring all this up because I don’t know if I have ever adequately expressed how much the true friendship, acceptance, and love of those young ladies did for me then and continues to do for me today. Truth be told, by our senior year of high school they were watching me die. They got rides in from another state more than once to see me emaciated and hooked up to machines, not knowing if that visit was going to be the last. And through it all, they saw me.  ME. The girl that’s still an enormous part of the woman I am today. I honestly don’t know how they did it, but I believe that the love and acceptance they showed me is the greatest gift that friendship has to offer.

I hope that sharing this doesn’t put a damper on the inspiring words Janet has to offer. My intention in sharing that glimpse into our early friendship was as far from that as it could be. Instead I hoped it would  add to the meaning behind what she wished to share, and that you would be better able to understand the sincerity, thoughtfulness, and beauty that I have been privileged enough to experience time and time again, simply because she is my friend.

I’d like to clarify that Janet’s sentiments - as will be the case with comments from any of the other women I will be posting in the coming weeks - are completely her own. I simply sent around an email letting them know about my undie dancing project idea and asking for some song recommendations and hopefully specific feedback.  I am truly honored to have received the awesome responses I did. So let's get to it. Here is what Janet had to say about the value of dancing in your drawers.

                                                                                                                                                          

" WHERE TO START?!?!?  OMG!!!  So to start off I will dance around (in my own house) in undies or fully clothed to just about anything! Currently, Rock of Ages OBC (original Broadway cast) and anything Glee soundtrack. Music in general helps me to feel better, no matter what is going on.  I of course LOVE LOVE LOVE Glee!!!  It makes me miss "The Clump" so much!  Glee in general makes me think of sleepovers in Christa's basement and carefree time.  Times before paying bills, before working everyday, and days of sharing my inner most thoughts with "the clump" who understood and each had a different perspective on those thoughts, days when I could see my friends everyday. In general music is what heals the soul.  I use it everyday with my students as well.  When things are stressful in the classroom we put on a dancing tune and take min or two and dance!  To quote Shrek the musical "Let your freak flag fly!" I love your blog; it is very enlightening and helpful.  Please keep writing.  Never forget that it’s the arts that help us to live!  Whether its painting, sketching, writing, cooking, dancing, singing, acting, or doing a silly craft it’s something to help you escape or cope with life!  These are the things that make us who we are!  

You think once you’re out of high school/ adolescence that all your immature fears go away, but they don't.  Your life changes and somehow to expect to "grow up" but parts of us never do.  Sometimes this is a good thing, like letting your inner child out.  But sometimes your inner adolescent escapes as well.  I get caught up in your old fears of beauty. What you should look like, how much you should weigh, and such. Only now it adds in all the beauty components with your adult responsibilities.  So not only must you be model looking, but also Wonder Woman at the same time with a career.  So how does one get over all of this?  Through escapes like music and dance.  Thank goodness for my home and window blinds!  When things feel completely overwhelming it's time to shake what your mamma gave ya!  So I LOVE LOVE LOVE the dancing undie project!"  

I wanted to post a song to pass along some dancing inspiration based on what each friend had to say, so in honor of my friendship with Janet, I’m taking it back old school. I fondly recall her love for TLC when we first met. So this is for you. Get your groove on, girlfriend! I assure you I will absolutely be doing the same as soon as I click “publish”.

Dancing takes a backseat....temporarily.

"Nothing in life is so hard that you can't make it easier by the way you take it." - Ellen Glasgow

It has obviously been quite some time since I’ve posted, and to be perfectly honest, it’s also been quite some time since I’ve written much of anything. Shortly after my last entry in August I sat down on my living room floor, laptop on the stool in front of me, and pounded out a rough draft of what I had hoped would be an intro to some thoughts one of my longtime friends had shared with me on the topic of underwear dancing. I assumed I would revise and post it in a week or so, but as is so often the case with life, it had other plans for me. A lot of that involved working hard and continuing to plug away at this new life I’m building for myself, but some of it has admittedly been not wanting to write about such a fun, light topic when I’m still in the midst of working through a lot of things that aren’t all that enjoyable or carefree. Don’t get me wrong, life is treating me really well, and I want any of you taking the time to read this to know that I’m speaking the truth. Of course if you know me at all you know I’m as honest as they come, but looking back at a few (much) older posts, I’ve realized that when writing about my own life I had from time to time expressed what I so badly wanted to believe about myself, but rarely­- deep down - truly believed. This time I know how immensely fortunate I am for having the life that I do, especially thinking back to where I was this time just last year. That said, I’m going to speak frankly  and say that truly loving and accepting oneself is still damn difficult. I work a lot, I get physically tired and can’t always be as active as I’d like, so…. I feel bad about myself. I continue to process some more emotional difficulties stemming from all that’s happened in my life over the past year, I become mentally spent and so… I feel bad about myself. I’m sure you get the picture. When I get stuck in that self-deprecating rut, the last thing I feel like doing is jumping around to uplifting music in my underwear. I can't imagine that anyone would.

Yet in spite of this so-called rut, I still felt that itch to write- in particular to blog – yet I knew there was no way I could tackle a post about embracing myself in a happy-go-lucky way feeling as I did. Time and again I thought about those very friends whose thoughts I was wanting to share, and how extremely confounding it is that even with all their unconditional love, acceptance, and support of me – many of them offering all of that to me for over half of my life – my own self –loathing could  and would still creep in and reign supreme. It may sound a bit melodramatic to those who haven’t experienced it for themselves, but it can be a very painful and helpless feeling. After becoming completely overwhelmed one evening last week, I contacted a friend of mine – one of the only true friends I’ve made so far in my new hometown – merely hoping for a kind heart and an open ear to allow me to vent. Well, I got that for sure….but I also got immeasurably more in the form of true inspiration. She has been “there”  - though everyone’s “there” is unique to their life experience, we can definitely relate– and she could state with unflinching honesty and confidence that for some people, learning to love themselves is the most difficult thing they’ll ever face, but she that she could promise me that if I truly learned to do so, it would be more than worth it. I wish I could remember the exact words she used because it felt like someone hit me over the head and woke me up in the most wonderful way possible. I also wish I could sit here and write that I have since done a complete 180 with regard to my self-esteem… but unfortunately, I can’t. Not yet. I’ve expressed many times that to me, what’s true is beautiful, and so I feel it my duty to pass that on to my readers (aka my friends and family) by always being truthful when I write. No, I didn’t suddenly learn to love myself because of an exceptionally inspiring conversation with a very special young lady….but….for the first time in weeks… I stripped down to my undies and I danced. And danced. And danced. And it felt really, really good.

It’s in that spirit that I plan on posting the random thoughts and musings about dancing in one’s underwear that some of my favorite friends were kind enough to send me over the summer – hopefully over the next few weeks. I may not have the time or wherewithal to write much, but I hope that posting them will inspire you (and me too!) to keep striving for self acceptance and true enjoyment of the beauty that is present in each of our lives and in each of us. It certainly can’t hurt to try.