Finding Ways to Relax: Fancy Dinner Dance

Ecclesiastes 3:4 - "... a time to laugh ... and a time to dance ..."

Vintage style, yo!

This past week, I was asked by one of my friends if I wanted to go up to a fancy dinner dance with her and a couple of friends. "It's a black tie affair," she said.

I protested. "But I don't own a black tie!"

Regardless, I was easily convinced, and, after finding myself all dressed up with someplace to go on a Friday afternoon, I drove over to the third member of our party's house and picked her up (obviously, I considered myself the fourth member of the party).

It was a several-hour trip up to the hidden ancient dancing grounds. The plan was for the two of us riding in my car to meet my friend and her date halfway there, and then carpool the rest of the way there. Even though I'd never before met my copilot, we felt comfortable and relaxed as our conversation meandered, along with the car, down the highway. This comfortable feeling continued as we joined the others and finished the trek up.

Live music and senior citizens were the major attractions at the dinner dance. Given that we were, as far as I could tell, the youngest group in the room, it was easy to feel a little intimidated by the obviously love-struck couples as they expertly danced to Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. However, despite our inability to dance like pros, we nonetheless made the most of it, coming up with the best dance moves anyone's ever seen on this side of the Mississippi. I mean, that wave-heart-jump move! STUNNING.

The ride home was, again, comfortable, and even though my copilot and now new-found friend was incredibly tired and had work the next day, she graciously stayed up to keep me company on the last leg home.

It was an excellent evening altogether, particularly so in my mind because of how relaxing it was. With the stress of school and work and other socialities constantly stomping down on my mind, it was nice to just go into something, even a new and foreign experience, with no expectations and no worries. Looking back, it's been a while since I've done anything with that sort of attitude. Rather, I seem to have slipped back into the mentality of doing things because I have to, not because I necessarily want to. It made me ponder how easy it is to just lose myself in the intricacies of life and never give time for myself.

My challenge to you all today is to find something that relaxes you. Set everything in your schedule aside, including what other people expect of you (like professors and their homework), what you expect of yourself (like writing a blog post), and put it on hold for a while, even just for an hour or so. Nothing helped prepare me for the upcoming week more than just going out and having good old-fashioned fun, and I know that, whatever you're facing, you'll experience the same kind of feelings I did.

So go on! Get out there! What are you doing still reading?

Hey!

HEY!

Stop reading!

Seriously, it's like you never listen.