Since my 37th birthday at the end of February I
have gotten into the bad habit of focusing way too much on the things I thought
I should have by this stage in life: a great career, a nice home, a husband,
some kids. I think about one or more of these things daily, sometimes
obsessively, and this has caused me to second guess many of the decisions I’ve
made since the day I graduated high school. What the hell was I thinking
majoring in history? Should I have gone to law school? Why have I spent money
traveling instead of putting money away for a down payment on a house? Was the
guy I went on a blind date with who only eats bland food and has never set foot
outside of the county in which he was born really so terrible? Would a second
date have killed you, Kelly?
Focusing on those things as the metrics for success and
seeing that I have come up short on all of them has caused me to beat myself up
and doubt my own judgement.
So last Friday I took the day off (I would like to mention I
have a great job, it just isn’t on a career track) to drive to Fredericksburg
for the annual crawfish boil my friends host at their place just outside of
town. Driving through the Texas Hill Country in spring when the wildflowers are
in full bloom is a singular experience. It is inspiring. It is amazing. It reinforces
my belief in God. It is hard to feel bad when you are immersed in such natural
beauty. It was exactly what I needed to open myself up to a weekend of fun.
Within a few hours of my arrival my other friends who were
making the trip arrived and I was surrounded by some of my favorite people in
the world. The friends you will still be friends with 20 years from now. The
ones you don’t even have to talk to very often to stay close. The ones who pick
up where you left off each time you get together. The friends who converged upon
the small town of Hereford, Texas every November for 10 years to cook chili in
the freezing cold, and who have forgotten more fun from those weekends than
many people will ever be blessed to know. These were the friends I needed to
see to restore my faith in myself.
The crawfish boil proceeded as planned on Saturday (after
the customary Mahaley’s breakfast tacos and drinks from Sonic, of course) and
it was great. There were lots of other people invited, many familiar faces from
crawfish boils past, but my group of friends who are all from out of town were
the only ones staying at the house. Actually, the house isn’t big enough for
all of us, so one of the couples brings their RV and sets it up in the pasture
behind the garage so that everyone has a bed. When a thunderstorm blew in late
in the day, a couple of us took shelter in the RV. As the other guests began to
leave, those staying slowly made their way into the RV. Why we didn’t all head
into the house is beyond me. It would have made more sense, but when the second
round of rain started a while later, there we all were in the RV. Eight adults,
a teenager, and two little kids in close quarters. We had beer to quench our
thirst, chocolate éclair dessert to fill our bellies, and iPhones to plug into
the RV’s sound system providing the music to lift our spirits.
Then came the dancing.
Ahhh, the dancing. I
LOVE dancing. Of all the things I love about the people in this group, it might
be our mutual love of dancing that endears them to me the most. None of us are
particularly good dancers (in fact one of us only dances under duress, but
loves to laugh at the rest of us), but we all love music, and after a few
cervezas (which we also love), we can’t help but get up and dance to it. Those
10 years of cooking chili at the Broken Arrow Saloon always ended in dancing on
the gravel floor behind the bar in to the wee hours of the morning. That spot behind
the bar became known as The Pit, and the dancers it contained, The Pit Crew. The
Saloon was torn down a few years ago, so The Pit Crew has had to take its show
on the road. If you are particularly lucky, you may have spotted various
incarnations of the Crew out and about at such locations as The Duckhorn Tavern
in Temple, Texas, The Oliver St. John Gogarty Bar in Dublin, Ireland, or the
kitchen in the Big House at the Piston Ranch just outside of Fredericksburg,
Texas. Basically, anyplace three or more members of this august body get
together is likely to turn in to a dance party.
When you are dancing with the Crew, you are in the moment.
You might be rehashing good times from the past or planning more good times for
the future, but for the most part you are just there in that space with those
people having a fucking blast. You are free to be silly and stupid knowing you
won’t be judged. In fact, it seems the worse you dance, the more you are
accepted. It is liberating and restorative and I always feel great for days
after.
We danced until we dropped. Before the little kids fell
asleep, they thought it was great fun. The teenager thought we were all
bananas. I hope that we are making an impression on the second generation of
the Crew though. I hope they are learning that it is ok to be silly and have
fun, that you don’t need a lot of fancy stuff to have a great time, that your
real friends don’t expect you to be cool just to be yourself. I hope 30 years
from now they are off dancing with their friends and loved ones somewhere while
my friends and I are rockin’ the retirement home.
Making the long drive back to Fort Worth on Sad Sunday
(after more Mahaley’s tacos and Sonic drinks, of course) I got to thinking that
if I had majored in engineering or accounting, I might have been way more
stressed in college (I love history, so those classes were fun for me) and
maybe I wouldn’t have gotten to spend so much time with, and become such good
friends with the people who form the core of this group. If I had gone to law
school I may not have been able to take off for all of those November trips to
Hereford to dance in The Pit, meet the other members of this group, and create
wonderful memories. If I had stashed my
travel money away I would not have been part of taking the Crew international
and having one of the absolute best weeks of my life in Ireland. If I had gone
on a second date with Mr. Bland Food it would not have killed me, but the third
date would have. He had no interest in ever going anywhere fun.
Life is a series of decisions, and my decisions led me down
a path that resulted in dancing in an RV with my friends during a thunderstorm
Saturday night. I think that is a set of decisions I can live with, and I hope
I keep making the choices that lead to more of those moments.
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