Nothing Personal

Red Light, Green Light, 1-2-3

When I take a walk and it gets so cold that I need to distract myself I sometimes play a game with upcoming stoplights where if I see they are red I close my eyes and try not to open them until I suspect the light has turned green.  I’m pretty bad at this game, usually I have to alter the rules to “getting it right more than three times in ten” before I can pretend that I won.

Today was a good day for a walk because it was rumored snow was coming - best to appreciate the ice-free world while you can - and because I had absolutely nothing to do.  It’s quite a dangerous condition, “nothing to do.”  A girl can find herself following attractive men to Europe in just such a condition.  A walk is dangerous too (especially if you’re planning on closing your eyes periodically), but slightly more prudent than many alternatives.

I have lots of thoughts vying for my attention when I take a walk.   There are silent alarms going off, and existential questions, and nasal, accountant-type voices asking for a few minutes to look at the numbers.  There’s an injury preventing me from dancing, a few places on my body that scream if I put too much weight on them while sleeping, and a previously stumbling career now totally stalled as a result.  There’s two or three new pounds curving out my bras and jeans; I see them reflected in the eyes of men on the street.  None of their looks say, “Ah, a ballerina!”

And someone whom in the past I have not been able to trust quietly begs my forgiveness, and for a second year demonstrates he will endeavor to deserve it while withstanding quite a few valiant attempts of mine to punish him with hurt and rejection.

Walking around with all that in my head is slippery enough without help from the weather.

There are so many icy questions to avoid.  “Is this the end of my ballet career?”  Younger dancers than I have been retired by their bodies.  But it’s too soon!  I haven’t yet done what I set out to do, what I’ve had my eye on (sometimes more than others) since I started my training at the age of ten.  Whether or not I believe in destiny, I can’t face the thought of giving up now, no matter how stridently my body appears to be asking for it.

“Will I ever truly succeed at anything?”  I know I have potential to do well at other things.  But I had an extremely high, extremely rare level of potential to do well at ballet, and look how that’s gone.  

“Do I want to give him a second chance? Can I live with myself if I don’t? What happens if I do and he lets me down?” I’m so fucking terrified of this line of questioning that I’m just going to leave that alone.

This is where the game with the stoplights came in handy on my walk this afternoon.

On the first three tries I got it wrong.  “Red, still red, and … still fucking red what-the-fuck!  Ok, calm your shit down, breathe, close your eyes.  You know that shit has to turn green.  It’s only a matter of time.  There is no fucking question it’s going to turn green, it’s just not you who’s gonna make it happen.”

When I opened my eyes again the light was still red but “whatever!” because I was already thinking that maybe the answers to all of my questions were like that:  The green light is coming and I just have to sit tight and wait it out.  Closed eyes, open eyes, it doesn’t matter, because it is inevitable that it’s coming down the line.  I can sit at the intersection, or I can run around in circles, or I can close my eyes and breathe, or I can stay up all night reading physical therapy articles relating to hip and psoas problems, or I can talk on the phone for five hours about how fucking unfair it all is, or I can put on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack and dance, dance, dance - my choice.  The green light is coming, but not until it comes.  If you want to believe in destiny you have to believe in the sanctity of a red light.

It’s either a little bit profound or else total bullshit.  Certainly it is suspiciously religious-sounding, and pseudo-philosophical at best.  Essentially I’m struggling with the same old human stuff.  Life handed me lemons and I made one heck of a lemonade, so then Life stole it, drank it, and pissed all over me.  It happens to everyone!  Hard work is repaid with only vague or fleeting success, optimism is repaid with usury, loyalty with betrayal, faith with ridicule.  When I stopped trying to keep from being bitter what I discovered is that just like everything else, morality has a selfish motive embedded at its heart: You don’t treat the world the way it’s treated you because if you think loyalty is repaid poorly, well, you don’t want to see what you get in return for utter faithlessness.

No more lemons, no more lemonade, no more games where I try to convince myself I won, and for the love of self if not God, no more utter faithlessness.  To all the red lights I say, “I believe!” and even if I don’t, I have to say, the suggestion of belief is at least exciting.