Before Dance Class
Sometimes something can come out of the blue and really throw you for a loop. So here’s the deal. I don’t speak to my mom anymore because we do not see eye-to-eye on things that really matter to me. It’s been my choice to distance myself from her over the last few years, and that’s okay. Admittedly, it’s not always easy and it makes me sad to think about the state of our relationship, but I do feel like it was necessary for my own mental health.
Before I go much further, I also need to bring up the fact that my dad is experiencing some really big financial issues at the moment. It’s not something I want to talk very candidly about, mostly because it’s not for me to tell, so I’ll leave it at that.
A few moments ago I received an email from an address I had never seen before but it was very clearly from my mom. The email was an invite to discuss my dad’s finances along with my brothers for next Tuesday.
Immediately I’m frozen because it feels like I’m being manipulated into a conversation with my mom under the guise of helping my dad. Of course I want to help my dad, and I would like to be involved in these discussions… But the fear of being in a video call with my mom is very real. I’m worried that my emotions would run so high that I wouldn’t be very helpful in the discussion. I’m also worried that I would erupt into a mess of tears or fiery words which would easily get twisted and turned around, making me the bad guy as always.
“How selfish of her to act this way when we’re talking about our dad!” “What’s her problem?” “She always does this.” My brain is super quick to come up with my brothers’ imaginary responses, even though I know they probably wouldn’t say any of those things.
It’s amazing how something like this little email invite can set the course for my weekend. High-stress events like this take multiple days for me to process, and that’s not even counting the time it takes to decompress afterward. If I had a meter for confidence, I would gauge that I started the day with a reading of, say, 81%. Now? It’s looking closer to 50%. Hmm.
After Dance Class
Dance class was so fun tonight!!! I didn’t go last month so when I showed up for class tonight a bunch of people were excited to see me! I’m so glad that I went, too. We learned some choreography to the Yoncé part of Partition by Beyoncé and it definitely took me quite a while to finally get it, but by the end of the class I think I got it down. I’ve joined the performance team for my dance class group and we have our first practice session later this month and apparently this choreo is part of the routine! It’s a good thing I’ve got time to practice it!!
You know, I feel so much better than I did earlier in the evening. It’s really nice to be reminded that you don’t exist in a void, you know? Like there are other people out there who think you’re cool and fun! Plus I think I got a ton of endorphins from dancing, so there’s that.
Also I messaged my older brother about how I was feeling about the video chat with our mom and he was so understanding and said he’ll fill me in afterwards. So it’s a happy ending after all!
