Dance is My Saving Grace

I don’t think I’d be able to continue with the work I’m doing right now if it wasn’t for the gift of dancing. I have been dancing on and off all my life. But I discovered my favourite style of dance 6 years ago in Liverpool. I was working with a Buddhist body work practitioner. Trying to reduce the impossible seizures. Although he supported me loads in them he could never actually reduce them. It actually makes sense to me. 

There was so much more that had to be healed before they could stop or even begin to. But of course I was desperate. I spent 15 years desperate. But back then I didn’t know how many more years of them I had ahead of me. I’m glad I didn’t. I needed them to stop and sometimes the delusion that they are going to go away quickly is what allows you to survive. Just like the delusion that you are going to meet the love of your life. Sounds crazy huh? When you are fifteen and you start collapsing for no reason. 

It’s a medical mystery and no one can tell you why. What are you going to tell yourself? A pretty 15 year old teenager? That it’s going to be like in a movie of course. That someone is going to come along and save you. I didn’t get that although as the mega lady at Leicester Square tube station who it turned out was also a policewoman in the Caribbean who worked up until her ninth month of pregnancy said - don’t say it couldn’t happen. 

3,000, 5,000, 2,000 - however many seizures it’s been later - it could happen. But I got so much more. I couldn’t pass my fitness to be an English teacher and so I found geography and planning and renewables and utilities. And sustainability. I met the two software engineers who really changed the course of my life through two separate seizures. My friend told me that I should write a book. I want to write a book. I’ve met everyone. Off duty actors. Accident and emergency doctors. One under the clocktower in Brighton who said to me “it’s very hard to die around me.” I’ve met hundreds of paramedics who didn’t believe me and then very very few who did - even the ones who said they did believe me often let on they didn’t really. I’ve been put into taxis and had free food and drinks given to me and I’ve cancelled trains at Gatwick airport and I’ve held up a train full of fans going to a Bon Jovi concert in Liverpool at Warrington.

I’ve been in police cars (only ever when they were helping me out thank goodness) and I’ve been on dates with people I met during a seizure (only once okay pending twice) and I’ve cried on the floor in public places more times than I will ever share. 

I’ve lived a double life. The nice lady with three degrees. The nice lady with the tech job. The nice lady with the posh British accent. On the floor late at night because on a Friday night everyone thinks I’m drunk. On the floor in the summer because my summer jacket was always less fancy than a winter jacket and people are more likely to help you if you dress nicer. On the floor in the Eurostar and in Liverpool Lime Street and in London Victoria. Driven by a nice station worker who said “Lady Gaga does not walk.” Laughing surrounded by paramedics and laughing surrounded by station workers and laughing surrounded by police officers I met two years in a row by random coincidence.

So don’t tell me I haven’t lived. And don’t tell me I haven’t overcome ten times as many barriers as the next person to be in my current job. Even with my neurodiversity. Even with this. I still haven’t said everything I want to say or could say but there are some things I’d like to talk about but it’s not the right time yet maybe. Anyway in November a miracle happened. My seizures began to ease off. I found myself in lots of high trigger situations and was okay. This is always a good sign. Of course I would like them to be completely gone. But if I can survive being in a high stress situation and be okay then this is a good sign

I began to dance. I hadn’t moved in years but it was like I had never stopped

My teacher said to me after one lesson “you were born to be on the dance floor.” I’ll take that. It clears my head. It heals my emotions.

It unblocks my energy and anything that was blocked in my life becomes unblocked. It heals my energy and it clears my heart

There is nothing I love more in this world than dancing. Than the way that it feels to be a dancer. And I’m not big on specific prayers but if I could have one secret wish then it would be to be a dancer forever… and okay then maybe one more. …