#ineedhelpwithhashtags

So how do you start something that’s been poking at you for ages…..you only get a single opportunity at your first post. “what if its misinterpreted, poorly written, lacks substance or I can’t capture the moment”… This is the world my ruminating brain presents to me, highlighting a complete catastrophe before the first step is taken therefore paralyzing me. Fear and god can’t be used in the same sentence and God has placed me here, abroad in Cebu City to be precise. This is my world. The sun is shining, I’m jet lagged, poorly nourished after economy class catering and excited. I remember a friend once asking me in 2014 what I thought I was “suppose” to do, as if god were asking me I answered, “I believe I’m supposed to wander for awhile”. I’m 33 years old, from California, I have been sober for 10 years, I am not married, no children and not sure where I’m heading in this life. Travel is my passion. Experiencing, conversing, planning, reading and wanderlust-ing consume me. For years I wanted to write about what the world looks like from a recovering addicts perspective (the above about fear may resonate with a few). I will fill in the blanks about my history as we move along. I look forward to our journey together.

1.      Family support

2.      For pink ladies and jazz (you know who you are)

3.      For this instant powder coffee that will get me through the morning

4.      The friends I have made on this planet

Fact one: I’m terrible at singing.

Ever get a chance to listen to me, and you’ll know. It isn’t projection I’m lacking, it isn’t theory, it’s the….tonal lock...on a key, that I seem to be missing. Every key sounds like every other one; my ears are colorblind.

I meet people that so easily start singing a song, without music, and I can hear the intervals that their voice keeps between words, and I can tell that it’s right, they’ve found their key, they know it and feel it, and I open my voice to sing along and…

...I hesitate.

When I sing, it’s...tenuous. At first. If I find a key to lean on, then I can throw my weight into the song and belt out words with gusto, but until then...it’s more of a quiet endeavour.

Fact two: I am not currently singing. I am, in fact, apart from the clickety-clack of my glow-in-the-dark neon gaming keyboard, sitting in almost unwrinkled silence in my living room. I am, in fact, writing.

But you knew that. I waste your time talking about it.

But the principles are the same. I’m...unknowing...of what tone these words will take. I want to talk about my dancing experiences (spoilers: it’s basically wrecked my life in the best possible way, and if you give me a chance to talk at length about it I’ll bascially go forev--- oh wait, that’s what I could to heeere)

...but.

The things that draw me to dance….the things that keep me coming back, it isn’t the physical movement of dance. It isn’t the technique, or any of the things that physically happen in the room. It’s the invisible parts of the dance. The interplay of two humans, and what we learn from that, is the thing that draws me back.

You see, when I first started dancing, I didn’t have a lot of social experience with people like that. The glow-in-the-dark gaming keyboard...draws the rest of the picture. So when I had to hold a lady’s hand, or even move her by her hips…

Well, oh my god, where is the woman’s hips? What are hips?

In the middle of my nervous breakdown, swimming in the middle of a salsa song, the lady I was dancing with smiled at me and -- you know where this is going -- I decided at that moment I would do anything to earn her smile again.

I...have learned, since then, that there are at least two kinds of smiles. There’s the kind that is genuine enjoyment, and there’s the one where it’s literal pain.