Fitting In, Just As We Are ................ 1/24/16

        I don't hip hop.

        No, I'm not saying I can-not move like a rabbit.  I'm expressing I don't dance like many of the current genera-tion.  I got to know a lot of terrific people recently. Train-ing over many weeks in the final half of last year made that happen.  It grew my commun-ity of friends.

        I improved.  I am better at what I do.  Because of it, I am filled with gratitude.  But not
enough to dance the way many graduates of this training do.  It is one of the major ways they get together. Dancing hip hop.

       A mind of my own, I have.  That's autonomy.  Don't get me wrong.  I love dancing.  Grew up with it.  Was surrounded by it, as a boy and young man.  I also took dancing nearly every semester of college.  Usually danced with the instructor.

       Because I knew the moves.  But it was ballroom dancing.  Waltz, Foxtrot, Swing, Cha Cha, Rumba, Tango, Salsa, Cumbia, Mambo, I can do.  Free form, con-temporary dancing I can move to.  But there is no comparison.  I am not asking others to agree.

       There's beauty created when dancing ballroom.  De-cades of doing it taught me much.  It is fun, being in sync, moving to the music.  It is sat-isfying being one with my dance partner.It creates joyful connection with that person.

       The time flies. Transport-ed to a rhythmical world, I am. I am in my body when shaking or gliding on the dance floor.  I am enveloped with the beauty of music.  Emotions are re-leased melodically.

       I drink in the fun dancing offers.

             A good friend was miffed today.  I told him why I didn't join a dancing oppor-tunity last weekend.  It was with fellow training graduates.  It is happening this weekend, too.  I won't go.

       I'm not interest-ed.  Somehow, because I have dif-ferent tastes, he felt there was something wrong.  With him.  Or, with me.  There isn't.

       One important lesson learned from  Al-Anon Family Groups is that we can hold different opinions.  Neither of us has to be wrong.  You may like vanilla ice cream.  That's fine.  I don't.  We are both free to enjoy what we like.

       No morals are being violated, when I eat orange sherbet and you enjoy your favorite flavor.  When we learn this lesson, we all fit in, just as we are.

       I just don't do hip hop.

How About You? 
Where do you disagree, finding yourself standing apart from others?