Hello dear friends!
Bet you gave up on ever reading a post on this blog again, didn't you? I have not been inspired to write for most of the summer (which is a good thing, summer has been full, and has been a blast!), but tonight I am feeling the need to write. Something unusual happened to me this evening, and I wanted to process it "on paper." Tonight, I became invisible.
Being invisible is very unusual for me. I am tall. I have a big personality. I take up lots of space. I use lots of hand gestures. I am loud. I wear tall heels. I love bright colors. I relish the spotlight. "A shrinking violet" is not a phrase used to describe me.
Tonight I went out to meet a friend for salsa dancing, something that I love to do. I started salsa dancing in college, and though I have never taken any classes or lessons, it is a form of dance, which means that it is fun for me. In college and in my early 20's, I never had a shortage of people asking me to dance, and I rarely left the dance floor. It has been a few years since I last salsa-ed, but I figured I'd be out on the floor in no time.
Wrong. I did not get asked to dance. Not even once. I sat on the sidelines and watched my friend having a blast dancing with a variety of people, which was a huge pleasure to watch, as she is good dancer, and was having lots of fun. Don't get me wrong--I actually had a fun time, because the dancing was outside, the weather was beautiful, the music was good, and there were a lot of incredibly talented couples there who made it feel like we were at a latin dance competition. It was just strange to want to dance so badly, but not be asked.
I know that I am tall. Diminutive I will never be, and the majority of the women that were dancing were shorter than the majority of the men there. Many men do not feel comfortable dancing with someone taller than them, and I get that, as partnering, turns, etc. can be difficult when the "following" partner is taller. However, there were quite a few tall women that were getting asked to dance too, and I was thinking--"hey, what has she got that I haven't?" but it was pretty easy to see--they were skinny. "Willowy" is the word I would use to describe them, a word that I loathe and love in equal measure--love because it has connotations of beauty that I yearn to embody, loathe because my stature will always lean toward "oak." : ) If you were an average heighted gal, you got to have a wider range of body shape and still have an opportunity to dance, but us 5'11" and beyond ladies? Only thin would fill your dance card.
I know someone who went through a major weight loss and described her experience post weight loss as being seen for the first time. I never really got what she meant, as to me, I feel that it is nearly impossible for me to not be seen--in fact, I demand to be noticed. However, in this situation, I truly got what it feels like. I almost felt like I was somehow dressed like the walls of the building, or was wearing an invisibility cloak. I watched men scan the room for dance partners and scroll right past me, over and over again, like I wasn't even there. I ceased to register to them, on a cellular level, because I am comprised of too many cells.
Now many people were there looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right, and I feel very fortunate that I have found mine, and was not there looking for a date. I was just there to enjoy a beautiful Sunday night, have some laughs, and dance a bit. And I did not get to do that.
There is no take-away from this, no magical way to end this post. I don't have an answer, and I did not do the brave thing, which was to march up to someone and say "we are going to dance." The reason why I didn't do it was twofold. First, I was having flashbacks of one terrible junior high dance where my HUGE crush turned me down for a dance (through the grapevine of course, we would never have talked face to face) by saying "I'd never dance with her, she's too fat," and so this time, I just wasn't in the mood to be rejected, but secondly, I shouldn't have HAD to ask someone to dance. I have a really pretty face, a great smile, was dancing in my chair and on the sidelines, and was obviously hoping for a dance. I don't think I could have made it clearer. At an event like that, I deserved a turn on the floor just as much as the pretty girl with two left feet, or the stellar dancer with legs for days.
I don't want this to be a "poor little me" post, because it is not that it at all. I had a fun night with my friend, and plan to go salsa dancing with her again. I just wanted to shake all of the men in the room and tell them to pay attention! I am lucky to have found a partner who loves me for me, who loves me more than I love myself oftentimes, who has thought I was beautiful at every weight, every dress size, every hair color, and every mental state. But not every person is as fortunate. There are ladies out there who are tall, ad curvy, maybe overweight, or short and quiet, or wild and spirited, or whatever it is, but they are looking for companionship, for love, for a dance. And they are being overlooked. They are being rendered invisible, for whatever reason, and the world is missing out.
So I hope that all of us can take time this week to make sure we truly "see" the people in our lives, whether it is the barista who makes your coffee perfectly everyday, the cleaning crew who maintains your office, the child begging for your undivided attention, the girl waiting for the dance. Everyone deserves to be seen.
And if you haven't seen this yet, check it out. It is pretty powerful and profound.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xPAat-T1uhE&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DxPAat-T1uhE
I'll be seeing you.
Hugs,
Nina
