The moment I felt it

A few nights ago, for our Miamaid (church youth group) activity, we were dancing.  Rose, a sparkly girl with enormous dimples and a ready smile had masterminded the event.  She asked her dance instructor to come and teach us.

I, of course, was planning to watch from the side.  Dancing doesn't even come close to approaching the list of Things I Can Do.

Rose had other ideas.  She informed me I had to.

(Since when do I take orders from teenage girls?  Since now I guess.)

I slipped off my shoes and walked sock footed onto the gym floor.  Some of the girls (like Rose) were dancers.  Some of them (like me) weren't.  We all tried.

The instructor, after leading us through some stretches that proved to the world how inflexible I am, had us line up in two lines.  Then we had to do leaps (!) and other dance moves I don't remember the name of across the gym floor while everyone else watched.

It was the best.

We watched each other and cheered each other on and laughed with each other.  (One pretty girl, a cheerleader who can do back flips and crazy jumps couldn't figure out the order of the steps.  She resorted to just running across the gym and fluttering her arms behind her.) The instructor was fabulous.  She was beautiful and graceful and kind.  She kept encouraging and complimenting us.  Her only flaw was that several times she told another leader and me that she was "just impressed you are out here."  Like we were a few steps from the rest home, but look at us try.

She's young; I'll forgive her.

At one point, two older boys came into the gym.  One of them started dancing too.  He was sort of mocking and sort of playing along and the girls were sort of OK with it.  Then the other boy whipped out his phone and started recording because that's what kids do.

Sammie, a lovely, athletic, champion swimmer, non dancer standing next to me, looked at me with wide eyes.  "I don't want him to take a video of this!" she said, panic rising.

She had already insisted on going last across the gym so none of us would watch her (we could all watch her from the other side but that didn't seem to matter as much).

Without thinking about it, I marched over to the boy with the phone out.  "You have to leave," I said, looking up into his laughing face.

He ignored me and kept taking video like it was his birthright.  He's a big football player type kid and as far as he was concerned, he wasn't doing anything wrong and who was I anyway?

I was looking at him (with the look I reserve for such occasions) so he said, "I'm just recording Jordan, not the girls."

I took a step toward the towering boy.

"Seriously," I said, still friendly, but Mama Bear was in the building.

"Fine," he said and he left.  The other boy did too.

I returned to my girls and for the first time, they felt like my girls.

Having this job with these young women scares the life out of me.  They are intimidating and unforgiving and formidable just like teenage girls everywhere.  I am the very furthest away from a cool and fun leader.  I am awkward and insecure, but increasingly, I love them.  They are brave and strong and pretty incredible.

I don't want to mess this up.