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Waiting for Another

No one can stay alive when nobody is waiting for them. Everyone who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for them at the station or the airport. Everyone wants to tell her story and share her moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home, waiting for her to come back.

Henri Nouwen wrote this about death, life, and the human condition. I’ve found a truth about it even in the smaller things of life, like performing in a show.

Dancing three different numbers for American Dance Studio’s show was exhilirating. The pressure was inspiring, the newness was terrifying, and my desire to do well was nerve racking. I was high off of adrenaline, proud of how the dances came together, and disappointed in all the little things I knew could be better. And while my partners experienced all of this with me, I still felt rather alone in the whole experience.

I didn’t really have anybody waiting for me at “home”, in the audience. All of the people who clapped were truly waiting to clap for someone else they knew. The loneliness of it didn’t weigh upon me until the end of the first night’s performance; I exited past a crowd of people who didn’t know my name.

Well… almost. There were two; they came to watch their friend and my salsa partner, Chelsea. They also stayed for the whole show, and their unexpected presence was a rich blessing. They greeted me afterward and spoke words of praise. They were enthusiastic and excited and - above all - with me, withus, for they felt the same toward Chelsea. And their presence, their closeness is the antithesis of loneliness and transformed a passing moment of exhiliration into something… deeper. Richer. Anchored.

Weeks have passed now and I wonder: why didn’t I invite anyone to come and watch? If this was so important, what prevented me from inviting other people in?

I don’t like my answer much: inviting others in is scary, especially when it involves something I love so deeply (dance). I was afraid to share my exhiliration with an other, crushed when I faced the resulting loneliness, and thrilled when Chelsea’s friends redeemed the moment.

I hope I learn from this. And I hope some day to properly thank the two of them for a gift they probably don’t even realize they gave. Funny how friendship works, isn’t it?