First Dance

The thing about first dances is that they're a lot like first loves - messy, awkward, and filled with the constant fear that you're doing everything wrong. When my turn came, I gave her the requisite peck on the cheek - the kind of meaningless social gesture that somehow means everything when you're terrified of messing up.

"I'm sorry in advance if I step on you," I whispered in Filipino, my words tumbling out like nervous butterflies. She smiled - not the kind of smile that changes your world, but the kind that acknowledges your existence in the most polite way possible. And here's the thing about dancing: it's basically just organized falling, except you're supposed to make it look graceful while holding another human being. The minutes stretched into infinity, each second an opportunity for my historically poor relationship with gravity to manifest itself in spectacular fashion.

She asked me about college, about my age, and I told her I was working, twenty-one, though I didn't look it. The whole time, I wore the kind of smile that says "I'm pretending I know what I'm doing" - the universal language of the terrified.

And then it was over, and I watched from my assigned seat as the next guy took my place. That's when I saw it - the smile. Not the polite one she'd given me, but the real one, the kind that makes you realize all your previous definitions of smiling were wrong. It was the smile of Someone Special dancing with Someone Special, and I was neither of those Someones.

From my new vantage point of Not Dancing, everything became painfully clear - all the should-haves and could-haves playing like a PowerPoint presentation of my inadequacies. My shoulders too low, my frame too loose, my steps too hesitant. It's funny how clarity always comes when it's too late to matter.

But maybe that's the point of first dances, and seconds, and thirds - each one is a lesson in what not to do next time, a manual written in missteps and awkward pauses. You learn where to hold on and where to let go, when to lead and when to follow, how to be present in a moment that's already slipping away.

And so you wait for the next dance, carrying your newfound knowledge like a secret, hoping that somewhere between now and then, you'll figure out how to transform all these lessons into grace. Because that's what we do - we wait, we learn, we hope, and sometimes, if we're lucky, we dance again.