If you know me at all, you know that I am lacking a little bit in the rhythm department. For example, at church, if there is clapping and singing at the same time, I have to choose one or the other. I can’t do both. And I think it is safe to say that when I dance, I look more like I am in pain or that I am having a spasm than anything else. Luckily, I have an amazing wife who still (for some reason) likes dancing with me.

I, on the other hand, don’t really like to do it. I find it super uncomfortable and embarrassing. I feel like dance is some kind of a secret language that I just don’t understand. It is like everyone else can just listen to the music and move all of the parts of their body independently with all of the different rhythms. Like all of their movements make sense and look good. When I dance, pretty much all of me has to go together. I am convinced that I only have about three joints when I’m dancing. Everything else just kind of melds and moves together. Move my hips? Impossible. And what in the world am I supposed to do with my arms? I can never figure that one out.

This brings me back to poor Ann. Poor Ann loves to dance and almost never gets to. I will dance with her sometimes at weddings, but that’s pretty much it. So tonight, I took Ann dancing. And not just any dancing… we took a ballroom dancing class. Ann loves to watch the show So You Think You Can Dance and she has mentioned many times that she would like to take a dance class. I always thought that sounded like the worst thing ever. Who wants to go to a class and be the worst dancer there? Not me! But tonight, I did just that. I went to a class and I was DEFINITELY the worst dancer there.

But I actually had a lot of fun. It was mostly older people who knew how to ballroom dance in the class. And to make it even more uncomfortable, you switch who you dance with constantly. So there I was, dancing the cha-cha with complete strangers (that is not a sentence that I ever thought I would type). But as the night went along I got (maybe a little bit) better. I could at least be in the general vicinity of where I was supposed to be and spin my partner at the right time. From the way I started, this was a big accomplishment. And there were two nice ladies who were actually quite good that were really encouraging. They would celebrate with me when I got a little bit closer to getting it right. And they would laugh with me when I didn’t. And I don’t know that I’ve ever laughed at myself quite so much. And of course, Ann had a blast and picked up the steps way faster than I did.

So what did I learn tonight? I think mostly I learned that other people really have the power to make an uncomfortable situation a lot less uncomfortable. Because of the two nice ladies, my time there was not bad at all. But if they had rolled their eyes at me and made me feel like they wished that I wasn’t there, it would have been a VERY uncomfortable night. But they were very gracious and that went a long way towards making my night turn out to be pretty fun. And maybe I need to be that person for others sometimes…