the way to do it

Friday night hadn't gone as planned. The short version is I had a date that flopped. This outcome was unexpected, felt like complete u-turn from where I’d sensed we might be heading, so that it was the surprise, and not the situation itself, that had me feeling disappointed. The next morning my body woke up before the sun rose very high, and yet I felt like pulling the covers over my head as if it shined too bright into my room. I layed in bed texting my sisters about the night before, hoping their messages back would change everything. One said, “That stinks, Bets,” which felt as close as she could come to putting her arm around me, considering she was 2,000 miles away. Those kinds of gestures do change everything, just not in the way you thought you needed.

I should emphasize that things were not that bad. I hadn’t even had enough time to really fall for this guy. Like I said, I was just disoriented. After a few more minutes of lying in my bed, I threw the covers off to get ready for my running group. A steady pace, clear direction, the sound of others around me, and a challenge were things I knew I needed. And it was a good run, only I spent most of it replaying moments — embarrassing ones, confusing ones — instead of shaking the whole thing off. 

Later, after I’d run and showered and was putting away clean laundry in my room, Abby came in. Whenever she comes in my room, she hums a few notes and bounces up and down, her indication that she’d like to dance. That’s what we do together in my room. I put my phone into a speaker and chose music while Abby closed the door and climbed onto my low bed. By this point, we had our routine down. The words to the music were something about moving and shaking, and that’s what we did. She giggled and laughed and fell down and got back up. So this is the way to do it, I remembered. Dance it out, laugh and always get back up.

Abby does it again.