Epiphany Through Song

Pandora picked Richie Valens singing La Bamba as the first song to start our day after waking Abigail up. I am sure everyone knows it is physically impossible to listen to that song without performing it. I was looking in the mirror while playing air rhythm sticks when suddenly I felt old and defeated by the world. Rhythm sticks? Why was I playing rhythm sticks? Was it because it was all that was left in my once vast imagination. Once upon a time I would have been a dancer during the song. Using my own form of swaying salsa mixed with made up tap and tumbling I would be all over the stage causing the audience to forget about Richie and be awe struck by my dance skills. Then I recalled somewhere down the line of life, probably due to being teased, I replaced the dancing with playing air guitar. I would start out calm and in control of my instrument blending into the corner of the stage and then end up knee walking with my guitar bending over backwards as I played it over my head. I guess someone telling me I looked silly led to the riddance of the air guitar and me singing instead. I would belt out the words as best I could making eye contact with the excited crowd below my stage over my microphone hairbrush. Then after a while I suppose a negative comment about being off key or not knowing the Spanish part caused me to lip sync. I am not sure when I stopped the lip syncing and reduced myself to the air rhythm sticks. Where was the passion in my pretend play? I was just making a motion, marching in place worried someone other than the kids would see. An adult would make fun of me so I was keeping it toned down. But I looked at Abigail swaying with the music moving her arms nowhere close to the beat and I saw Jedi marching around in a dance that was a cross between the Hokey Pokey and Electric Slide mixed with a Waltz.

Suddenly it hit me. I refused to be a boring mom who picked up air Rhythm Sticks when I had a vast array of other choices I could use. I brought out the guitar and played while moving in circles and flipping my hair back and forth. It made me a little dizzy so until that feeling passed I began to sing, but my throat was dry from not having any coffee yet. So I transitioned to lip syncing WITH my signature dance moves. Jedi landed on the bean bag chair when I crashed into him so I kept adding my tap moves. Then I remembered that I was never the type of person to care what others thought. I had stopped dancing because it hurt. And because it was hard to suck in air and lip sync at the same time. And because when my dance move involved getting on the floor it was nearly impossible to get back up.

I took one last look into the room as I walked away. Richie was still singing and the kids were still dancing, oblivious that Mom had walked off the stage. I headed for the medicine cabinet to find the Ibuprofen vowing I would exercise more and eat less starting now. Well,. . . starting after my stash of Cadbury eggs hidden in the medicine cabinet is depleted.