Dated

     You know me ... cheesy "fake" senior-style portraits make me laugh. And I love to laugh. (My hair is the joke in this picture.) Courtney was willing to play along. She said, "Erin, let me get  a picture of you," and I promptly snapped into posed position. I also like the 'sweep your hair and look backward' pose (see below, and please admire the way I softened the edges.) It's all about getting that right balance of 'I am a somewhat non-horrible looking person' and 'I grew up in the 80s and can therefore poke fun at myself.' If I had any kind of photography talent, I would enjoy creating a Cindy Sherman-esque portfolio entitled Senior Portraits. Obviously, I would need a great deal of wicker and pastel light gels. I would also need to make sure my face was shiny.

     When I was serving as stake YW secretary, I attended a few of the youth dances as a stake leader. At one dance, a nice-looking young man, a bit awkward, came up and asked me to dance. Another kid hissed at him, "She's a leader, dude," and the boy slunk away. Oh, the shame for him. He worked up some kind of courage, and then realized that he had horribly misjudged his options. Probably looked at me and thought, 'She can't be too choosy, I'll ask her." 

     In that moment of his slinking and me trying to stuff my smile, I remembered everything I hated about church dances the first time around. It is so hard to be a teenager ! Let's be honest here: we both loved and feared church youth activities. On the one hand, it was fun to meet new sparkly people and experience that thrill of finding a potential pen pal. (In my youth, we wrote letters to each other on homemade cards enveloped in Benetton ads we ripped out of magazines, and had to wait days or weeks for responses. So, so much easier to just friend on FB, these lucky kids today.) On the other hand, it was uniquely painful to be approached by a dead battery-type person (no spark!) and know that I needed to be nice and make awkward conversation while standing uncomfortably close to this stranger for the length of a song.

     Even now, when I hear the song "Somebody" by Depeche Mode, I instinctively put my arms into Mormon dance position. Can't tell you how many times I've made small talk with a dance partner to that song. (And it's a gorgeous song ... my roomies and I listened to it over and over on the boom box in our dark, candlelit dorm living room, but it's about the kind of connection everybody wants to find, and I often found it disconcerting to listen to the lyrics while dancing with a guy who wasn't my 'somebody.' Um, no, I do NOT want to share my "innermost thoughts" with you. It was even worse to stand next to someone who didn't want to share his innermost thoughts with me! Ack - he thinks I'm a dead battery.)

     As I move forward into the next stage of my life, it appears likely that I'll be moving simultaneously backward, backward into the world of church dances. Come New Year's Eve, I'm going to be standing in a church cultural hall making small talk with strangers standing uncomfortably close. This thought terrifies me, yes, but I cannot avoid my fate. Look what happened to Oedipus. Delaying destiny does not effectively avert disaster.

     Of course, it might be easier to walk through the gym doors and fill in one of those My Name Is ... tags (Erin with a big heart for the i dot, right?) IF I were bolstered by tales of  dance fright tales from my blog friends. I can pretend that you're standing by me, clique-style, or accompanying me to the ladies room to reapply carmex. Any shame moments you're willing to share? Any "N. Dynamite" dance moves I should make a point to demonstrate? It's a given that I'll request the song "Jump" by Van Halen. Any other favorites from your youth dance years? Help me help myself to step away from the wall and into my future.