The Dance Floor Was Open

It was a year of places and people. It was a year of walking the dogs and loving my sons and earning platinum traveler status (which really comes in handy when you find yourself in Albany, NY at midnight with no hotel reservation or rental car). It was a year of settling in and sorting out, a year of gently letting go and bravely holding on. They say the owl was a baker’s daughter, we know who we are but not what we may be.

Here’s a quick inventory of places I went and people I met.

I took four trips to Dallas and one to Fort Worth, was in Orlando five times too many, rolled through Fort Lauderdale twice, met my sister in Nashville, stayed two bulletproof nights in South Carolina (one next to a pawn shop and one in a boujie backyard saltwater pool), passed through El Paso the same week that Koe Wetzel released #HellPaso, don’t feel the need to go back to Las Cruces, NM ever again, hot-spotted in Houston, Jacksonville, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, touched-down in Tampa, arrived in Albany and drove through the Berkshires, hit Manchester, NH twice en route to Jackson, NH and Beverly, MA, hid myself in Outer Banks, and discovered Hawaii. A hui hoi.

I let the door hit Trey on his way out, collided with coincidence in Las Colinas, left one at an ice cream truck, returned Jeffrey Allan to his ex, ran from a guy who brought his friend on our first date, and then ran from his friend who wanted to date me next, sent my regrets to a Farmer, an Algebra teacher, an Airman, and a Marine pilot, put a First Sergeant on notice for bad behavior, blew the whistle on the Penn State whistleblower, paged an Uber for David who got sick in the bathroom, can’t quite confirm what happened with Ken, passed on the guy with the shot-off thumb, let the dialysis patient down easy, almost allowed a 6’4” US Marshal to break my spirit and a 6’3” Chef to steal my hope. Turns out, I stand taller than them both.

I saw all the live music (Mike Ryan, Koe Wetzel, Morgan Wallen with HARDY twice, Tim McGraw, The Chicks, and Chris Stapleton), froze with friends watching the lighting of the vines from a mountainside, burned to a crisp with my cousin on a beach in Sarasota, crossed a finish line faster than ever in December only to slow to a crawl from an injury in June. I went up in a helicopter over Kauai while Liam rappelled out of one in Kentucky. I lost old friends and made new ones. I equally enjoyed evenings at the rodeo and The Kennedy Center, drank a Starbucks at the Stockyards and a pineapple cooler in Palm Coast, slept on a boat in Fort Myers and in a hotel named The Mayflower in DC.

And in between it all, there was dancing: from honky-tonks, to weddings, to front row seats, to concert pits, to the floor of a brewery, to the beach bar where the lead singer’s mom fell off a palm tree. There was so much dancing. And most of the time when I am dancing I am with Koren. So when you see a tall blond and a tall brunette stand up bouncing, just know, they are about to dance with so much joy and so much abandon, that chances are, you won’t be able to help yourself from dancing too.

And that’s the highlight reel I choose for my 47th year: a free spirit, a full heart, a funky beat, and forever friend by my side on an otherwise empty dance floor. Creating space and making our own happiness.

New hashtag coming tomorrow: #ThisIs48.