Dancing With Two Left Feet
An assignment for my Magazine Writing class asking us to write a personal essay in third person
She was kind of like the doors of the Dublin townhomes, painted tints and shades of all the colors of the rainbow with different trims and decorations. Some days it was the bright red Victorian door with clean white trim. Some days it was soft white French doors as an outer shield, protecting the main door. Each door was put up to portray her changing aura, aspirations and ideas.
She didn’t know what idea she would let in what door. Life was coming at her from different directions as senior year came to a close. She was eager and terrified at the same time. Excited, but not sure why. She didn’t have it figured out.
The potential to do anything in this day and age is a blessing and a curse. While the world today shuffles around, roaming with possibility and ability, it’s not always shuffling in the way it should. The world shuffles with two left feet, dancing incorrectly and clumsily. The world might have the textbook definition of what it takes to dance — two feet — but it doesn’t know how to do it the right way. It doesn’t have the balance it takes to do the shuffle correctly.
Instead, we’re falling flat on our face in the middle of the dance floor. People like her get lost in the technical potential of what to do with her life. The real world becomes a hindering habitat of her ideas and dreams. Sure, she may have the degree and the options, but that doesn’t make it a fluid, balanced transition into the next phase of her life.
For starters, she’s a woman. She needs years of expertise to attain an entry level job. She wants to travel the world, but is faced with the bad taste in foreigner’s mouths of her being American. She wants to move to a new city, but can’t afford the transition into independence with the plague of student debt dragging her down. She graduates with confidence, but realizes that in 2017 a college degree isn’t considered a success in America, but a requirement similar to a high school diploma. She may have all of the requirements and experience it takes to be a win an election, but loses to a reality TV celebrity who becomes president from the argument of hating politicians.
As cynical as it may sound, the world is dancing with two left feet and tripping us up as we dance along. It needs an instructor, crutches, a welcoming audience and the support of the other dancers to move forward.
The world could be a beautiful place, if it worked together to overcome these challenges. The potential to do anything can become more of a blessing than a curse, more of a clear vision than confusion, and more attainable for everyone than left for the small few.
The world dances with two left feet if it keeps pushing away those not “like them,” segregating against women, separating ethnicities, suffocating students with years of debt, and ignoring the many problems that face society today.
Like the colorful Dublin doors, she has a variety of knowledge and talents. She’s not to be ignored and tripped up on the dance floor. And he isn’t either. If the world continues to go on with the wrong instructors and audiences, it will be stuck in paralysis, an injury far beyond repair.
