"Show us what you GOT or Show us what you Learned"

I knewww this would happened if I "blogged" (I use the term loosely.. 3 posts in like a year so. not winning any marketing or consistency awards) but whatever- when I feel inspired either by food I eat or real things, I will write about them and if that's every three months so be it.

This time- I'm inspired by an African dance class I took on Tuesday with some friends at Carnegie Mellon.  A lottttt of the class revolved around us making fun of ourselves and the instructor yelling at me to smile more, but it was the END of the class that has stuck with me.  At the very end, the instructor made us all get in a circle and said with a smile "ok - now's the time where you show us what you GOT or show us what you learned"... Obviously at first I was instantly MORTIFIED. Every single move we learned was gone- out of my head.  My friend and I seriously  eyed up the door for a minute wondering if we could make a quick get away but there was just no way out- that'd be more humiliating.  So one by one, people jumped into the middle of the circle and just did it.

Anyways, all week now I've been saying "show us what you got or show us what you learned" around my apartment in a prettttty terrible imitation of the instructor's voice.  But today, when thinking through my daily frustrations during some quiet time in the morning, I realized that that could be the motto of this stage of life I'm going through.

My friends and I have had about 78 zillion discussions about this "quarter life crisis" we all seem to be going through.  No matter WHAT we are all doing now after college- we are all unsure and stressed out about it.  It's the first time in our lives our peer group isn't entirely comparable to us in some way.  We can't ask each other what classes we're taking or what teachers to take or avoid.  We can't confer about meal plans or weekend plans.  Some of us are married, some happily single; some of us in grad school, some across the country.  There is no standard to compare ourselves to and I think we're all going a litttttle crazy over it.

I've been thinking about this all in every aspect of my life- job, school, marriage, faith, friendships, and I've come to the realization that that era of safety and comparison is done. We went through each grade, school, and class adding to our experience and knowledge, and now- it's time to circle up and show everyone what you got and/or show them what you learned.  I'm expected to be a PERSON now- to have my own opinions and goals and schedule and to be confident in that and its terrifying- maybe slightly more so than the african dance circle I guess- but a pretty good comparison none the less.  There's no eyeing the door, there's no choosing to let your turn go by, and yeah there are times when I can look dumb or forget what I'm supposed to be doing, but for right now- I just have to realize that I've "got" and "learned" a lot of things over the past few years and now it's time to just buck up and DO it.

....this is all obviously way easier said than done and I can promise I'll have 10-20 more mini breakdowns before 2013 is over about life and direction and blah blah blah- BUT hopefully those can be curbed in the future by remembering that those 3 seconds of horror preceding my time in the dance circle were followed by the fact that yes, I lived through it, all was well afterward, and I even decided to go back to the class next week to do it all over again.