Day OFF: Everything is different, nothing has changed

My dear, dear, midlife crisis friend explained to me once that nothing in her life had changed but that everything was different. I was confused. “So, things at work aren’t better?”

“Oh yes,” she explained. “They’re ten times better. I’m not annoyed with my coworker, not stressed about the amount of work I have to do, or bothered by the incompetence of the interns.”

“So, things are better at work. Your coworker finally started picking up the slack and actually doing her job.”

“No, she’s the same,” she explained. “I’m just different.”

And that’s what I noticed this weekend when my friend invited me to come see him DJ at a bar in the Mission at 10 at night.

Here are some things you should know about me:

I don’t really understand what to do in bars:  I don’t drink and I have never understood how to pick up on or be hit on by guys in bars.  So I normally spend my time feeling awkward and confused, intimidated by all those people who totally know what they’re doing, and just cringing at the thought of being approached. Also, I’m not so good at dancing unless the music is really good and I don’t care what the people in the room think about my inability to move. Finally, all I want to do at 10PM is go to sleep.   

But last night, I met my friend at Baobab at 10. He wasn’t there at first so I had to wait for him at the bar. And I was totally fine. I sat on a stool, made eye contact with some guy who was checking me out, and went back to just watching the room for my friend. While my friend was setting up his equipment, I just sat there and watched. I didn’t try to help so that I could hide in the corner. I didn’t even worry about whether or not he was spending too much time with me and not enough time with his friends. And then the music started playing and people danced and again, I just watched.

And here’s the funny thing. I actually started thinking about how amazing it was that I was in a bar and not worrying about myself, my interaction with others, the dynamics of the room; that for once I wasn’t trying to control my social situation with others. And guess what happened, I started thinking- drat! I started worrying again, can you believe it? Just by thinking about the fact that I wasn’t thinking, I started thinking again! Oh well. But I did manage to stay through my friend’s entire set and I didn’t look at my watch, not even once!

Anyway, my point is that the bar was the same: the dancing, the social rules, the dynamics- everything that normally causes me to think was all there, it hadn’t changed a bit. But me, I wasn’t. I wasn’t worried or trying to protect myself or trying to control the situation. Everything was different and nothing had changed.