Dance Way More
Written August 2023
Two nights ago, I had a dream that I finally made it back to my Auntie Bee’s house and got to go through all her remaining belongings.
She died 10 months ago.
My cousin is cleaning up and renovating her house. He will move in, just as she had hoped.
I cried in my dream. I grieved in my dream. I felt her with me in my dream. I was in her bathroom, but it looked different.
There was a recorder in the bathroom with her voice on it. I played it over and over and over to hear her voice in my dream.
When I wake up, I remember…
She died 10 months ago.
There are no more emails.
There are no more cards.
There are no more opportunities to call.
There are home videos on VHS at her house that are somewhere in her garage. I have been dying to watch them ever since she died. I’m 3 years old in them. My parents are still married In one part of the video, my family is playing volleyball on the beach. My mom and Auntie Bee are on the same team. Auntie Bee does or says something that makes my mom laugh so hard she falls to her knees in the sand and laughs like she’s about to pee her pants.
One time my mom did pee her pants on Bee’s porch from laughing so hard.
That kind of joy, you know.
Auntie Bee could make you laugh like that.
I have dreams of her often.
In dreams we process real life, and they offer a beautiful gateway into our psyche.
I have wanted to go back to California for over a year now, even though she’s not there. I need to go to her house, the carousel she took me to as a child, and I want to see my cousin and his children.
This time last year, a few months after I found out about Auntie Bee’s cancer diagnosis, my husband got hit by a car.
So instead of being able to get back to see her, I was caring for him.
I had just started a part time job so we could afford our bills, I was in my first year of business, working with new clients, all the while writing my book, experimenting with content, selling, and marketing my work.
It was a lot to hold. My nervous system did well granted I used to have panic disorder.
I didn’t have a panic attack.
I was able to show up to my part time job every day I was meant to be there.
I was able to show up and hold space for my clients everyday.
I felt my grief as it came. I leaned into my support system.
My capacity expanded.
But the financial pressure felt huge.
We had to put a lot on credit cards for the first time in years.
We had spent most of our time in Hawaii working to pay them off after needing them to pay for permanent residency in 2 countries and a big international move.
The second half of last year we went right back into the same amount of debt we left Sydney with when we moved to Hawaii in 2017.
Interesting how numbers re-occur isn’t it.
We’re in more debt than I would like to have. We still don’t have an emergency fund like I would like.
And living in Sydney is expensive.
But it’s only been one year.
It’s been one year since the rug got pulled out from under me and turned me into a real woman.
My marriage lead the way to my womanhood when I got engaged at 25. But this last year, man.
I am a woman with wide range after that year.
I am 33 years old.
I count my early 20’s as teen hood these days. At least that’s what they felt like for me. I was exploring and trying things on. Studying, learning, trying all kinds of jobs.
Seeing what fit with me and what didn’t.
And now I’m here. With a purpose that was born out of my pain. Writing a teaching memoir.
I have built an instagram community from scratch, currently holding 700 hundred followers and 400 posts. Organic, and I mean truly organic.
I don’t have a marketing background or a business background.
I don’t have a background in branding and never worked for a fortune 500 company.
I wasn’t one of the ones in corporate for a long time and then shifted into entrepreneurship.
I have generally always tried to live a life out of the box. I’m sure I can thank my parents for that. They didn’t push for college. They said vocations were smart. My father was a carpenter and massage therapist. My mother a massage therapist, cranial sacral therapist and energy healer.
I did my first yoga teacher training when I was 22 and taught yoga for about a year.
I traveled to Sydney, Australia when I was 23, went to Interior Design school and I eventually became a permanent resident when I was 28.
It’s almost 10 years later since I first landed here.
And last weekend I ran a Barefoot Free-Dance event at my local yoga studio.
The joy cultivated that night makes me want to have dance events every single day.
Honestly.
We do not dance enough.
I dance when I am stuck in my head. I dance when I don’t know what to do. I dance when I’m angry. I dance when I’m grieving. I dance when I’m happy.
The moral of the story is:
Take chances
Trust your body
Leap when there is a flicker
Love your people really big until they’re gone, and dance more.
