Shall We Dance?

Jerry and I flew down to Marathon, Florida a couple days ago for a wedding. The invitation said the dress code was "beach casual," but I was at a loss as to what to wear. I felt that showing my prosthesis would be distracting, but what did I have that would work? Nothing.

So I did what any of us would do. i went online shopping. I found a lightweight, very plain silk dress, as well as a pair of wide leg trousers and a short-sleeved tunic made in Finland. i bought them all so I could have options.

The day of the wedding I decided on the dress, which turned out to be a good decision, because while the temperature did not soar, the humidity did, and a dress would be cooler than trousers.

The wedding ceremony was delightful. The officiant was a fellow physican friend of the groom's. He told wonderful stories and the vows were simple but quite meaningful.

After the ceremony were appetizers and live music, followed by a forgettable dinner and even more forgettable wine.

Afterwards, the musician turned into a deejay, playing dance music on the patio that overlooked a swimming pool. A few weeks earlier I had attempted a few dances at a different wedding. That wedding joined two rescue dogs in marriage. It was a fundraiser for Barcs, the shelter where I volunteer. Jerry and I didn't dance much, because I ws still recovering from a stupid fall I took going to the bathroom in strange house without turning on the light. That fall was a day after I had attended a music and dance festival where I actually did a simple folk dance. I didn't write about it because the fall knocked all the positivity right out of me.

But this was different. I was recovered, and I felt brave. So we danced. I not only shook my behind, I moved my feet. I let go of one of Jerry's hands, then the other, then both. I was dancing!

Another amputee recently wrote an article about how he feels when someone calls him inspirational. Sometimes it embarasses him; sometimes he agrees. Mostly it embarasses me. Whenever I fall, or need to sit down because everything hurts, or am afraid to walk down a flight of stairs, I certainly don't feel inspirational. I feel like a failure.

I think mostly what I want to feel is normal. But that ain't gonna happen. So I guess I will take inspirational, because it beats the heck out of feeling like failure.

So I keep going, giving pep talks to other amputees and cancer survivors, and reminding caretakers to give themselves a break, because they too, are inspirational, no doubt more than they realize.

Tomorrow Jerry and I head out of the Florida sun to snowy Baltimore. We are visiting friends right now in Ft. Lauderdale. It's nice to be here, being with people I've known a long time. I've got nothing to prove here. I don't have to be anyone but myself. Not a failure, not inspirational. Just me.

I hope I can hold onto that feeling for a while, and remind myself that that's all I have to be.