Being Yourself

I believe in silly dances

Ever since I was 13, my mother has delivered the ultimate embarrassment tool on her children. Known as the “silly dance,” whenever she gets excited about something, she jumps up and down, hopping from one foot to another, waving her arms in the air and shrieking in excitement. As her daughter, I find this completely mortifying. Anytime she goes into the silly dance, my siblings and I would suddenly inch slowly away smiling awkwardly, explaining to people, “No, she’s not my mother.”

Even though as a child my mother embarrassed me to no end, and even though she still does the silly dance when something goes her way, I now enjoy it. The silly dance is who she is, and it shows that she’s happy. If she didn’t do her dance and just obeyed our wishes of “not in public, mom,” she would be compromising who she was.

My mother dances to her own beat, and many times that beat follows the works of Roger and Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Gershwin, the classics. Road trips in my family were always a fun time where we sang “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Oklahoma” or “West Side Story,” the musicals that she grew up with. My whole family now is evolved with theater and all aspects of it. I owe a lot of my love for the theater to my mother. I now sing show tunes in the shower and in the car. I even sing in public like my mother does and my friends are always doing that same awkward smile and whispering under their breath, “Carolyn, public.”

So in many ways I’m becoming my mother, which for any daughter is a fear of great proportions, but I’m not going to stop singing show tunes just because people feel embarrassed by it, that’s not who I am. I am a very random person, who although can’t dance, when my favorite song comes on the convenience store speaker system, I dance down the isles mouthing the words. I have no doubt I will mortify my own children with my rendition of the “silly dance.” So what? That’s who I am.

I believe everyone should dance to the beat of their own drum, even if the guy next to you gives you a weird look. In turn you should pick up a shampoo bottle in isle seven and use it as a microphone and continue your jam. I believe in the things that set us apart. I believe in mortifying your children so they will mortify theirs. I believe in being yourself, no matter how many awkward smiles you get. I believe in never compromising who you are.

I believe in silly dances.