The Final Waltz.

2012-06-24T20:49:36Z

Last Waltz, taken by Kevin Hollenbeck.

This is...damn. That ballroom (and attached house) has been in mom's/mine friends group for...whuf. My entire life plus some?

That ballroom is almost definitely the place where I experienced my first waltz. My first polka. My earliest forays into couple dancing, when I was eight-nine-ten-eleven-far too young to appreciate the form. It's where I came back to when I started being a dancer again, all through college --every trip to Maryland was arranged to see if I could stack it against a dance night. There was Oella too, but there's something magical about that house, all purple and beautiful and with the whiteboard listing dances and the guest book listing dancers.

That ballroom hosted the first dance of my first pair of dance shoes.

(And let's not even get started on the Grand Marches. I am an outright fucking *snob* about marches, for better or for worse, and it's all because I have been doing this since I was just a kid. Every month. With astounding dancers. If your grand march does not wind all throughout the house and up the stairs and back down again, just don't even talk to me, I'm not interested.)

And...Alex and Renee are selling it, which is totally their prerogative. Apparently it's going to a contra caller, so at least the ballroom will still be used as it should be and not turned into a basketball court or rec room or torn down entirely. But...it's leaving the group who taught me how to dance. And I missed my chance to say goodbye.

Last Waltz.

Always such a difficult concept, but never before has it felt so final.

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Note to Self

2012-06-21T23:31:29Z

I am allowed to want things that aren't fair.

Really.

I'm not entitled to them, oh certainly not, but I am allowed to want anything and everything I want. And I'm allowed to say that, and see if I can get it, and make compromises, and work through things, because that is what mature adults do when they have desires. They take steps to see those desires through, be that to fulfillment or closure.

I am allowed to want things that restrict others' choices. I am allowed to ask them to let their choices be restricted. They are allowed to say no, and if they do, it means I get to learn how to deal with it. I like learning how to deal with things, it makes me feel strong.

And I am allowed to want anything and everything I want, no matter how dirty or terrible or unfair or cruel or indulgent or useless. Wanting is not bad. Actions are changeable, feelings are not, and desire is every bit as much a feeling as hatred or sadness or guilt.

(Sometimes I find myself repeating in my writing and need to change the words to be less the same. Sometimes I find myself repeating because repetition is ritual and saying the words over and over and *over* again sometimes makes it easier to hear them.

And so despite the fact that I know asking for restriction is not fair, and something I find horrific asked of me, I am still allowed to want it. I can cry because I feel betrayed, cry because I am jealous, cry for any number of fucked up fractured reasons (because I am a fucked up fractured person and know that I'm just very good at hiding it) but I cannot cry because I feel wrong for wanting.

Desire is not wrong.

And so it is written and so it shall be cast.

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MOOP!

The Final Waltz.

Note to Self