Courage #2

This past weekend, we attended our first elementary school dance together as a family.  My daughter, who is in Kindergarten, informed me about this dance weeks before the flyers came home.  "It's going to be a decade dance, Mama!  You have to dress like you're from a decade in history.  I want to dress like the 1920's!  I want to be a flapper girl!"  She's six.  How does she even know about flappers?  But her enthusiasm was contagious and one weekend we found ourselves in every department of Target searching for the perfect accessories.  

My goal was to look authentic while spending as little money as possible - this was a two-hour school dance, after all.  For my daughter, we found two purple sequined skirts on the clearance rack.  We used one for her top, gluing on purple ribbon for straps, and one for the bottom.  We added black tights and dress shoes, a purple boa, some gold beads tied in a knot, and a black feathered headband.  Her purse was a clutch.  She was in heaven!  The boys were easy. My 3-year-old wore a white dress shirt with a built in vest and bow tie, jeans, and a baby blue fedora.  My husband wore a shirt and tie along with a fedora as well.  They were the cutest gangsters I've ever seen.  

And then there was me.  I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth about what to wear.  Trying on outfits for a costume party is akin to shopping for swimsuits.  I finally decided to simply focus on the accessories.  So I wore a black knit dress with black leggings and flats and jazzed it up with a hot pink feathered fascinator and wildly fun boa.  I was feeling good.  That is, until I got there.

I looked around and I realized that we were the only parents in the room in costume.  

Let me say that again.

WE WERE THE ONLY PARENTS IN THE ROOM IN COSTUME!  

Unbelievable.  

When you're someone who doesn't feel comfortable in their own skin, it's hard to get dressed up and parade yourself in front of a group of people you don't know.  It's very hard.  But when you are the only one dressed up in the entire gymnasium?  It's brutal.  I felt like I was at my own 8th grade dance - all gawky and shy - and wanted to hide under the table.  

But then, yet again, I saw my daughter.  

She was glowing in her purple sequins and had a smile a mile wide.  I wanted to bottle that girl up and drink her down so that I could feel a tiny bit of what she was feeling - free, uninhibited, joy.  She wasn't worried about her costume, or her body, or her lack of anything.  She was just having fun without a care in the world.  

I scanned the gym and realized that not only were the parents in their everyday clothes, they were all sitting on chairs lining the perimeter of the room.  What?  This is an elementary school dance, not a funeral.  Get up, damn it!  Go dance with your kids.

And so I did.  Well, first I asked my daughter if she wanted to me to dance with her and then I did.  And we danced the night away - my fabulous 1920's family and me.  We laughed and jumped and whooped and hollered until the kids were so tired they were begging to go home.  

That, my friends, took some courage.  Not the kind of courage required to don a bathing suit in the middle of winter, but courage nonetheless. 

 And you know what?  It felt fabulous!