I try to walk away and I stumble…
One day, I got a call from one of my male friends. He said, “I heard a song that made me think about you today.”
I am going to pause here, because in the moment, that sentence was all I needed to hear to think that this guy was obviously into me. Wouldn’t you think that too? Okay, Unpause.
He went on to share that the song was actually Macy Grey’s 1999 “I Try.” As in “I tried to say goodbye and I choke, I try to walk away and I stumble.“ Specifically he shared how he pictured me choking over my words while trying to talk in public and tripping over my own feet as I try to walk away from people. It clicked then, he wasn’t actually into me and I really needed to work on my clumsiness. That realization was 6 years ago. Let me share my progress towards this goal.
I was in a wedding a couple of weeks ago and we did the typical wedding stuff. Drank a little at the rehearsal dinner, stayed with the bride to be the night before, gossiped and then after a couple more glasses of wine, we tried to learn TikTok dances. Only the classiest dances for us though, so we focused on learning the dance for WAP.
Fast Forward to the next night, after the wedding ended, I had all the liquid courage I needed to debut my newly acquired moves. So on the bus ride home, I commandeered the USB chord and queued up the song. I was ready!
In an effort to make the moves even more dramatic I tried to use the chairs on each side of the aisle to assist me in the jumps. I was truly committed and giving it my all. Things quickly shifted as I realized mid jump that I actually wasn’t holding on to the chair, I was holding onto the armrests, which slammed down taking me to the floor with it.
What did I learn from this, you ask?
“I get knocked down, but I get up again, you are never gonna keep me down.“ - Chumbawamba If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. And I did, I really did.
This weekend, I found myself facing another opportunity to show off my skills. This time on a boat. I made some adjustments. I managed my expectations and chose a different dance. This time Up by Cardi B was selected, I recruited a friend to join me, and even nailed the moves while practicing on dry-land. However, there were some things I didn’t account for. The two biggest variables were waves and space. Turns out there were a lot of waves and a limited amount of space, especially when you are sharing the “stage” with someone. Halfway through my comeback performance, I fell off the boat, into the water and immediately got stung by jellyfish.
So, six years later and I am not as far along as I would have hoped. But I recently learned about the power of “Yet” so in an attempt to move the needle a little more towards thriving, here is my attempt at yetting.
I haven’t done a successful TikTok dance, Yet!
I can’t keep my balance while dancing on a boat, Yet!
The rash from the jellyfish sting hasn’t gone away, Yet!
I am not thriving, Yet! But someday, I will!
Cheers to someday, until then I am thirty, awkward, and surviving.
