Shut up and Dance

The Selby family traditions don't include a 'coming of age' ceremony - mostly because none of us kids liked being the center of a big fuss. We DO celebrate the yearly birthdays and some of the citizenship milestones. However, was typically low key. My 'sweet-sixteen' was a small lunch with friends/family. (Then the rest of the day to myself reading the books they'd gifted me.)

A quinceañera is about as opposite from a small lunch as you can get. There's a church service, dancing, a 'shoeing' ceremony, more dancing, and a dress code. It's a production on par with a wedding.

Productions and I have never mixed well - too many migraine triggers. Yet, through a weird series of twists, October I found myself waltzing to "El Mundo Ideal" in front of a whole lot of people. 

I wasn't just a wallflower guest. I was part of a quinceañera court.

It started innocently enough. The young lady, Ansleymarie, needed another chamberlain and asked if my younger brother Daniel would help. He accepted.

Cue first twist. While Kid Brother is a friendly, if snarky, guy, he is not a licensed driver or a dancer. That was simple enough to fix. The birthday girl's mother would provide dance lessons and I'd drive him. (I didn't mind. I could scout the church and gym for a place to hide in case of migraines.)

The second twist happened on the day before the first dance lesson. The birthday girl's best friend had been pulled out by her parents. My phone buzzed with a heartfelt plea from Ansleymarie's mother. I was already coming up, would I please join the court?

I blame what happened next on emotional transfer. When I got the text, I was musing about a quinceañera gift. I wanted it to be meaningful, special. I wanted to do something she would like.

I said yes.

In all fairness, the original text suggested that I would just have to dance one short song, as my brother's partner. I'd be another face in the crowd. I could do my wallflower thing, right?

It only took one dance lesson to burst that bubble.

The reason there was only one waltz was that there wasn't enough dancers for anything else. Half the court had backed out. There would be three couples in this. I'd be to the right of the birthday girl, wearing a high-lo lavender dress, in front of a lot of strangers , with no trilby for protection

Actually learning to box-step was the easy part. Once Kid Brother and I stopped moved like we were in a Tae-Kwan-Do demo, we had a pretty good sense of rhythm. We were starting to relax.

Unfortunately, the birthday girl and her snarky brother partner didn't have a good sense of rhythm. They also seemed to be trying to maim each other. Half-way through the lesson, I suggested we switch partners. The strong dancers could help the weaker ones.

It worked. However, the switch made permanent. My comfort zone was fading fast. Naively, I hoped that the third couple would add some buffer to this ordeal.

No, just no. If anything the classes got more stressful. We added another snarky male to the mix.

I'm not a thick-skinned person. I also have very good hearing (I could hear one of the dancer's artificial heart valve) When the people around me gripe and pick at each other, I can't ignore it as background noise.

This group spend as much time griping about the music, each other, and the mother's teaching ability as they did actually practicing. That third couple's lady actually got into a ten minute debate about wanting to restructure the whole routine because she 'couldn't do if if I don't lead.' You could almost see the steam coming out of the mother's ears.

All the bickering wore on me. I was sick of all this yammering. I was sick of the snarky bros going after each other. I was also thoroughly fed up with the smell of tobacco and my new partner's spittoon. (While half the class took smoke breaks, I was spending quality time with the gym's punching bag.)

Finally, practice was done. It was time for the real event.

My plan was for the setup was simple - treat the coordinating mother like 'Queen of the Universe.' It didn't matter if she contradicted herself. Her word was law. Kid Brother wholeheartedly agreed with this.

We put on our formal clothes and formal manners... then the penultimate twist to this story hit.

Despite behind middle-class, my family's cultural magpie horde includes the classic 'Yes sir, No sir, Right away sir,” Jeeves playbook. It's not a snob thing. The older etiquette shifts attention from you as a person to the guests and the honoree.

This worked wonderfully for me. My brother... not so much.

As I was running around the building, fetching things for the other ladies, the snark war went nuclear.

Every time I went by the entrance, the men were either on smoke break, out of sight of the guests or threatening to start a actually fight. While Kid Brother could give as good as he got, my big sister instincts were screaming. Finally, as I was hunting down an AWOL petticoat, I overheard one nasty comment too many, “I'll snap your neck.”

One of the worst elements of being a autistic adult is memory cascade. Those words and that tone sent me hurling down memory-lane. A dozen unpleasant leftovers bit me in the feelings.

I was stressed, fighting a migraine, and had no chance of holding all that inside. I was a sniffling, watered-eyed mess in the dressing area. The dance was about to start! There was no hiding my state. The whole quinceañera court knew something was wrong.

As I frantically tried to pull myself together, my wonderful kid brother, Daniel, pulled off a brilliant bit of social engineering, “We made my sister cry. Get it together or I will punch you so hard that {censored}.”

I was done with this. I faked a smiled, gripped my partner by the elbow, and stepped onto the gym floor. I was going to dance and nothing short of the building catching fire would stop me.

...the rest of the night went off without a hitch. Everyone waltzed in sync, the guys did this amazing routine with scarfs, and the quinceañera girl looked like a Disney princess. My embarrassment/ panic attack waited until I was at home in my own room.

The long twisty ordeal was done. I could go hide, sleep off the migraine, and then redon my hat.

In hindsight, I should have remembered on of my family's  proverbs.

“Big events are like sausage. Everyone enjoys them, but only if you don't know exactly what went into them.”