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musingsofazumbamind · 7 years ago

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“I am not okay”

The first time I ever met ZES Loretta Bates was at a class in Chicago. She was running late, the event was stifling hot, and the crowd was anxious. By the time she made it in, she was barely attached to her own luggage just trying to weave through the crowd to get to the stage. She arrived to find the host leading a warm up for her and getting the crowd riled on her behalf. My guess is it was a godsend because of how frazzled she felt.

She hopped up, grabbed the mic and ended the music. The first words from her mouth were, “I am not okay.”

I had never seen her dance in person, I had never taken a training or class from her, and yet these four words blew me away. She hadn’t even danced and I felt like I had been changed somehow.

She singlehandedly broke the seal on our perception of her perfection. I had never felt someone’s honesty so viscerally, and absolutely never anyone that “famous” being so vulnerable.

Since then, I have made a point to use those words, and often. In my head when I’m alone. In the car on the way back from a disappointment. With my husband when both he and I cannot define what in the world is going on. It is amazingly comforting to own up to broken feelings even without defining them.

Zumba Gold training with ZES Debbie Wood was today. I didn’t just learn a lot, I felt a lot. During the beginning class, throughout the drills and especially during the chair portions, I pictured being 82, after two different hip surgeries, with kids in another state with their really cute grandchildren... It made it all the more real to channel someone in my future class. But I also had an image in my head woven in and out of the day that this format just might do a bit of good in a Hospice setting... It was humbling to picture how this might look with a dying person wrapped by the love of their family, in an effort to bring comfort and joy and even laughter to a truly desperate and broken time.

It made me wonder, “What if I had done this for Lisa before she died? Could this have been our goodbye?” The weight of that made an immediate “I am not ok” form in my chest.

And just like that, Debbie changed to her cool down song. After a full day of pretending to be elderly, feeling discarded and disconnected, while also filling my heart with so much real gratitude for my mobility and my community, the cool down hit me. It hit me hard. “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit was a special song my class choreographed and filmed to send to Lisa before she died. It was, and still is, a special song for all of us on Tuesday nights. To think of her throughout my day is a gift, but hearing that song right then and there was a message. I wept warm tears in my pretend elderly body with my very real, open and listening heart, and truly felt she was there with me. (My friend later said she felt a rush of cold air when the song started, I firmly believe some of us hear and some of us feel these kinds of things, we are all different.)

Resiliency is cultivating the ability to be ok with not being ok. Depression, grief, changes in reality like divorces and job loss, and even blessings like children and promotions are pathways to resiliency. If we keep status quo without challenges and growth, we atrophy towards apathy and eventually find ourselves horizontal in some place we don’t want to be. But if we lean into these experiences it makes us stronger, and aware of our capacity for brokenness as well as contentment. My day got so low on such a lovely day, and now, before bed, my takeaway is that I am doubly ready, and already truly grateful, for what I feel tomorrow.

#grief #friendship #zumba #zumbalove #zumbafriends #zumbagold #lorettabates #debbiewood #instructor #resiliency #itsoktonotbeok

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