When I was in my early 20s, my friends and I used to have awesome parties. We would get together at an apartment or a rented cottage, and we would drink and eat and hang out. OK, we still do those things, but the thing we don’t do any more is dance. We used to dance for hours. We had a special “parties” playlist, and every song had its own schtick. It was fabulous.

And then it changed. Dancing became something we did only at weddings. I don’t know why that happened…did we get bored of the same songs over and over? Were we less fit? More self-conscious? Just not interested? All of the above?

I miss those parties. I was “the dancing girl,” first to start and longest to move, never afraid to get up and dance alone. When did that stop?

This past New Years I was determined to revisit my fabulous younger dancing self. I was going to get up and dance, dammit, regardless of everyone else.

Did I?

Sort of. A little. Self-consciously. In the corner.

I couldn’t access that fabulous dancing diva. She couldn’t get out from under the layers of “not _____ enough.” Not fit enough, not strong enough, not confident enough. And also “too ____.” Too old, too fat, too unfit. Too likely to hurt myself. Too easily mockable. And what would my friends think?

…writing this out, it makes me sad. I’m not any of those things, not really. I’m fit and strong enough to dance, at least for a bit (and that will help me dance longer next time). I’m confident enough to post this video online, which has to be scarier than dancing in front of people I know and love, right? And there’s no such thing as “too fat to dance.”

The hurting-myself fear is a whole separate issue with its own complex layers, but the bottom line is that I will be OK, especially if I build my fitness up gradually. People who want to mock me can eff off. And it’s not like my friends have never seen me dance before.

So there.

This video is dedicated to the fabulous dancer-at-parties I used to be. The one I peeked at last New Years. The one I am dedicated to excavating fully by next New Years.

Want to dance with me?