selfish

dear diary,

last night was fantastic!

fantastic fantastic fantastic!

moments of epiphany.

a conversation that led to deep insights about myself.

...

i was worried about my back. in close embrace, if the connection is not quite right, my back takes the hit. to look good, to maintain the posture, the line, the flow, despite the strain of an awkward contact, it all goes to my back. and i had been in pain.

as much as i love to dance CE, i just went for OE if i could not. and the dances were, well, sublime.

...

often, lomyl and i talked about the need to be selfish. what a "bad" word this is. but if we can't take care of ourselves, who would? i was born into a culture where sacrifice and compromise were virtues. to think that i would do something because I, ME ME ME, wanted to do it, for my own pleasure, was simply unthinkable.

more than the CE versus OE (which was a simple manifestation), there were other thing too, like, not feeling guilty about averting eye contact. last night, it was about what i wanted. the clarity of this "selfishness" overpowered me. in our many conversations, lomyl and i talked about "taking care of myself." and yet, it had always been an intellectual exercise, some kind of abstract notion that "this would be good for me."

i finally felt it, my body finally understood. an evolution from the cerebral to the visceral. joy!

i still don't know HOW to be selfish. i just, in that moment, in the laboratory that is the tango, knew that it would be a good thing.