This is titled sardonically, because I haven\’t been dancing in months. My body feels tight and sluggish (FMS/CFIDS/ME post-exertion fatigue and pain) from last night, but it\’s from folding t-shirts and then standing at a merchandise table for five hours to sell said t-shirts to intoxicated hipsters. Unlike when working at the bar, though, I wasn\’t getting paid last night. It was the five year anniversary of my friends\’ dj night, and with next month marking five years that he and I have known each other, and August marking five years that I have been attending the nights, when he asked if I would be the merch bitch for last night, I agreed. Labor of love. Oh, and free dinner ($10) and free drinks (one beer, one margarita, one rum punch) over the course of ten hours.
Ow.
I gotta say, I feel like metaphorically hitting myself in the head. It\’s a silly cycle; I don\’t like going out these days for various reasons, but one of them being people inevitably see me and say, \”Darling, you haven\’t been by for months! Where have you been?\” I can roll a few of those queries like water over oil, but eventually, I corrode. Particularly in a place that used to be a weekly hangout spot, it\’s hard to avoid getting more than a few of those, and after awhile, saying, \”Been busy with school,\” which is true but not the whole truth, really starts to get to me. It makes me want to avoid going out so I won\’t be questioned.
Also, I think my friend knew that I wouldn\’t have gone last night, and wouldn\’t have accepted a t-shirt, if I hadn\’t been put to work, because I don\’t come out anymore without feeling like I\’m needed somewhere (e.g., we need someone to do this, will you do it?), because I don\’t have the money to socialize anymore. I don\’t come out just to hangout because I don\’t feel like I have much in common with the people I used to kind of consider friends (bar/music buddies). In an attempt to keep up with school, I\’m focusing on that and am not allowing myself to follow current events, city politics, or news the way I used to, and I\’ve completely stopped paying attention to new music (because one new find causes me to look for another, which dominoes and sabotages my primary concentration on school). I\’m not traveling anymore, not taking photographs like I used to; really, my whole life is school, pets, and rehabilitative services, which is pretty damn boring and not something to share with bar friends. But not keeping up with the outside world leaves me high and dry during their conversations, which doesn\’t make me feel stupid but does make me resent being gimpy and in school — and how because I\’m gimpy and poor, in able to get by in school I have to focus on that, and that alone. I miss my life. I miss my friends. I miss conversations. I miss smiles, hugs, and feeling welcomed. But most of all, I miss dancing.
