I found myself dancing alone

I recently had a life-changing experience. Not a happy one, but one that certainly moves me from one chapter to the next. After a break up with my partner of over four years, I was not certain how I would fare. The same story has be lived and relived by many of us, or many of the ones that we know and love. What lead to this moment in our lives was, I had thought, incompatibility despite our best efforts to fit together, inability to connect on the deepest level, and the eventual frustration that comes from a friction that we both tried to quell. What really led to this moment was that he, like many men, always thought he was going to find something better, something shinier, something nicer to show off on the town. He found that, came up with an exit strategy, and pushed me to my limits so that I would be the bad guy and initiate the break up. He was guilt free and free to hook back up. Nice guy, huh?

In any event, what came next was uncertainty. For the next few weeks, I was convincing myself that I was going to be OK, that I was OK, that I was better off and that I will again find my happiness in love and life. I can be a very convincing person and so I listened to myself just as I listened to the words of encouragement and confirmations from my friends and family that I was, in fact, going to be OK. On one level, I believed myself and I believed my confidants. Yet there was this nagging suspicion knocking at my door that left a tinge of doubt in my mind. I shut it out, I never let it in, but it was there, patiently waiting outside.

I didn't go outside that much.

Outside was a relatively new city filled with new professional responsibilities, new challenges and new places to discover. Yet it's also a city where one's neighbors, colleagues, and cohorts in incidental conversation do not make that leap to become friends or acquaintances with whom you can catch a movie or have a drink. The French, once they become your friends, are the best friends in the world. Otherwise, they are polite passers-by; they have their world already choreographed around them and thus the friendship dance can take weeks, months, even years.

Although outgoing, talkative, engaging and fun-loving, I never enjoyed exploring on my own. As a student and a young professional, I spent plenty of time in Paris, very little money in my pocket, content to take walks by myself to soak in the city's architecture and atmosphere. Those were not my favorite moments in Paris. At 23, I explored Spain's Mediterranean coast for two weeks yet rarely had the chance to exercise my Spanish. Most recently, while my students split up in groups to investigate one of Brittany's coastal cities, I gave it my best and made a quick tour around the center only to find myself wanting to settle in one spot and wait for the time when we would regroup.

It's not the opinion of others who may spy a lonely traveler that bothers me. It's the idea that life is meant to be shared, and nothing in front of my eyes or under my feet really has any value unless there is someone there with whom to share it. Shared experiences resonate more; they give you glimpses into yourself and into your surroundings that you may not see otherwise. And they are reassuring in that, with your companion's expression and opinion, you have the confirmation or even the correction for what you yourself are seeing, feeling, and trying to understand. For me, exploring on my own would be far too much of an egocentric activity and I, unfortunately, try to stake claims to a more altruistic and less self-centered life.

Yet here I am, inside, spending hours and hours on a self-centered existence. It took well over a week before I could drag myself away from the computer, drop the remote from my hands, and finally do more than just tap my foot to keep the beat with my existence. Perhaps the louder I tapped, the quieter became that knocking at my door. But it was still there… until just a few minutes ago.

Working away the hours of this Sunday afternoon, planning a course for this summer and creating to-do lists for myself, I was listening to the radio as it played French remakes and vintage rock in the background. Typing away, unaware of my own body, I caught myself shimmying side to side in my chair, eventually bringing my arms into the movement, lifting my hands off the keyboard and putting a temporary stop to my work. I was smiling and bopping as I got up off my chair and away from my work. Heading for the kitchen to top off my coffee, I glanced at the door and for the first time in a few weeks, there was nothing on the other side. That suspicious knocking stopped.

I found myself dancing alone… and I liked it.

I find myself dancing alone... and I like it.