I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
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If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.
Back in the Groove
You teach me the way of life.
In your presence is total celebration.
Beautiful things are always in your right hand.
Psalm 16:11 (CEB)
I'm never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm
From "Careless Whisper" by Wham!
Earlier this year, as I started working to cultivate a sense of self-worth, I began to see that I've become disconnected from myself in some sense. I realized, for example, that I currently have no long-term goals. I completed my last long-term goal over two years ago when I was certified to preach. Right now, I'm just living from day to day. I also realized that I've been filling my life with distractions. I decided that I needed some quiet so that I can listen to myself and figure out what I want out of life.
I have not yet set any new goals for myself, but, when I started listening to myself, I realized that I've been living from a place of loss and disappointment. In other words, I've been living in the past. I can't really look toward the future if I'm fixated on the past.
I do a lot of thinking and reflecting while I'm walking, provided that I'm not playing a certain mobile game in which I'm trying to catch imaginary monsters. I recently realized that I need to start walking in places that don't make me long for the past - places other than the campus of the university I attended. I started walking on the trail that passes by my church, but, when I found myself becoming more and more irritated by bicyclists who constantly disregard the stop signs that are posted along the trail, I decided to consider other options.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk through the parks downtown. I had tried to find a place to walk that doesn't make me think of the past, but I still found it difficult to get away from my memories. I remembered how, when I started my current job nearly ten years ago, I started going downtown for lunch on Fridays, on which I only work half a day. I remembered how I used to enjoy walking around downtown back then. For example, on one Friday afternoon, I walked to the park after lunch and wandered around there for a while. Nowadays, I still go downtown on Fridays, but I typically just eat lunch, drink some coffee, and head home. I don't really linger downtown anymore. I wondered what changed.
As I walked, I started thinking about why I quit doing something else I used to enjoy, namely contra dancing. Contra dancing - if you've never heard of it - is a folk dance much like the square dance, in which two dance partners repeat a sequence of steps announced by a caller with neighboring couples. I started going to contra dances regularly in early 2012. I found it to be a fun way to get some exercise and a good way to meet women. By mid 2014, I had pretty much quit dancing, and I went my last dance in early 2015.
The reason I quit dancing is... complicated. At one point, I was attending virtually every contra dance in my area, so I might have needed a break. Sometimes I felt inadequate when watching other dancers who were more talented or more attractive than I was. At that time, some things in my life were getting to me, and contra dancing had become entangled with some of them. I tend to avoid things that become tainted by guilt, shame, or pain. Those circumstances are now behind me, so I've been contemplating a return to contra dancing.
I'm beginning to wonder if maybe one reason I've felt disconnected from myself is that I've disconnected myself from things that are important to me. C.S. Lewis suggests that becoming disconnected from oneself can actually be a precursor to becoming disconnected from God.1 Many of us tend not to associate Christianity with being ourselves. Some branches of Christianity even tell us that we are "totally depraved" as ourselves. If God created us, then why would God, of all beings, not want us to be ourselves? Lewis goes so far as to say that, the more one belongs to God, the more one becomes fully oneself.2
In The Screwtape Letters, the person identified as "the patient" becomes so wrapped up in trying to impress a new group of people in his life that he begins to lose himself. When he once again starts doing things that are meaningful to him - taking walks in places he loves and reading books he actually enjoys - he finds his way back to himself and back to God. Lewis suggests that doing positive things that we sincerely enjoy can actually reconnect us to ourselves, to reality, and ultimately to God.3 It would seem that, if I want to reconnect with myself, I need to pay attention to the things that are meaningful to me and to lean into them, whether they are things I believe are important or things I enjoy doing.
Every year, I make it a point to take the week of July 4th off from work. I don't typically make any plans during the week; I just think it's a good idea to take some time off from work every once in a while. To be honest, I don't really enjoy having a lot of time to myself. When I'm busy, I don't have time to think about how my life is not what I'd like it to be, but, when I don't have anything to do, I have to face how empty my life seems. Keeping myself busy to distract myself from my sadness is not my only option. I could also intentionally do things to enjoy my life.
This past Friday, after I ate lunch downtown, I decided to take the scenic route back to my car to enjoy the sights of the city. That evening, I attended my first contra dance in four and a half years. Everything came back to me - all of the dance steps and even asking women to dance - as if I had never quit dancing. As some would say, it was like riding a bike. I danced every dance that was called and found a different partner for each, and I think I must have been smiling the whole time. I'm planning to attend another dance in the near future.
I think that one reason I wish I could to return to the past is that I want to return to my life before the pain of recent years. I want to return to my life in its most idyllic state, to return to the figurative paradises I lost. Though I can never return to the past, I can always return to things that are meaningful to me, and I can refuse to allow the bad things in my life to tarnish the good things.
Notes:
- C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters. ch. 13
- ibid
- ibid
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